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CLAY AND RAINBOWS 











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—Page ii 


Clay and Rainbows 

A Novel 

BY 

DION CLAYTON CALTHROP 

n 

AUTHOR OF “SUSETTE,” “ST. QUIN,” ETC. 

WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY 
ALFRED JAMES DEWEY * 



NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

tsty & 


PZ-3 
. C \3$ 

c 


Copyright, 1914, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 


All rights reserved, including that of translation 
into foreign languages 


SEP 15 t?!4 


September, 1914 


©CI.A379528 ^ 


TO MY WIFE 


MARY VIOLET CLAYTON CALTHROP 



CONTENTS 

PART I 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I i. Danse Macabre i 

2. Caprice 5 

3. Fantasia 10 

II A Man of Fashion 17 

III London without Clothes 30 

IV The Smoking Sphinx 35 

V Roman Remains 52 

VI 1. Kindergarten 65 

2. Morceaux Elegants 67 

3. Rhapsodie Humoristique 74 

VII The Touch of a Wand 80 

VIII A Seat in the Grand Stand 91 

IX Health, Wealth and Happiness .... 98 

X Solitude in a Crowd 112 

XI The Last Barrier 117 

PART II 

XII 1. Chanson de Montagne 126 

2. Bergerette 129 

XIII Over the Shoulder 132 

XIV The Father of his People 140 

XV A Parcel of Books 151 

XVI Woman . . . , 160 

XVII Preserving the Proprieties 172 

XVIII Solo for Pan Pipes 186 

XIX The Storm 200 

XX Trespassers will be Prosecuted .... 209 

vii 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXI The Snow 217 

XXII The Stool of Repentance 233 

XXIII Myself when Young 243 

PART III 

XXIV 1. Tango de Piccadilly . 251 

2. Serio-Comic 253 

3. Dreams 261 

XXV In the Swim 262 

XXVI The Summons 269 

XXVII The Old Flame 282 

XXVIII The Last Ditch 291 

XXIX Clay and Rainbows 299 

XXX The Last Letter 310 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


Part I 


CHAPTER I 


I. DANSE MACABRE 


RANGE and blue and black: orange lights on 



blue pavements, and great piles of houses like 
cliffs, black against a blue-black sky. The rush and 
hurry of cabs, the plunge of huge omnibuses; the 
scattering crowds of thousands of people. Orange 
lights on white shirt-fronts and bare shoulders stand- 
ing in the doorways of theaters; whistles blowing, 
horns sounding, the sharp metallic ting of bells. Con- 
versation like the breaking of waves on a shore. A vast, 
excited murmur. One great solemn voice, the voice 
of that enormous energy called London. 

Between the houses like cliffs a constant stream, 
tearing, beating, surging. In the great streets like a 
torrent of black waters; in the quiet squares the drift 
and overflow. Cabs like frightened beetles darting 
away as if from the touch of an unseen hand; terrified 
buses, like huge animals, plunging wildly as if to 
certain death down the hill of Piccadilly, snorting, 
puffing, shaking, charging riotously at lamp-posts, 
ending at street corners their wild career and stand- 


2 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


ing there sweating, while white-faced mortals, wonder- 
ful adventurers, crowd into the orange light inside. 
Calmer, more stately private motor-cars, swift and 
silent runners, steering a dignified way through the 
whirling stream. And, behind all, the feeling of 
fear. And at every crossing an Angel of Death, sword 
in hand, calmly smiling. 

Above all like a gigantic blind face the blue-black 
sky heavy with thunder. 

A city of contrast; a city that, like some huge driven 
wheel, threw out sparks of light here and there, leav- 
ing the darkness more foul and abominable. With, 
here, some thousands moving calmly to supper in 
brilliantly lighted places, and, there, black forms 
crouched on benches by an evil leering river whose 
eyes were the reflections of lamps, and whose arms 
leaning over the Embankments were always inviting, 
pointing a way out, whose voice sang the icy slumber 
song of suicide. 

A dark square where melancholy trees pointed 
torn fingers to the threatening sky, a square of monot- 
onous houses heavy with sleep; a square inhabited, 
it seemed, by one figure, and that of bronze, perpet- 
ually pointing to a policeman’s cape which lay, rolled, 
on the pedestal. A square like a dark stagnant back- 
water from the prevailing stream, with houses like 
hard rocks, and the gardens like a scorched oasis. 
Suddenly an evil, silent thing in the form of a motor- 
car steals round a corner; a door opens; a square of 
orange light makes an ugly hole in the gloom, and a 
man in a livery, like some expensive warder’s, comes 


DANSE MACABRE 


3 


down the steps and leaves in the doorway a figure of 
amazing fragile beauty. If the square has the loath- 
some appearance of a toad, she, then, is the jewel in 
the toad’s forehead. She is something that sparkles 
and flashes under the light, a short skirt of silver 
gauze, with a cloak of some transparent stuff that 
shines and seems to reflect every color under the 
moon. In her black hair a silver star twinkles. And 
she is so frail and charming, and so slender and white 
that one wonders she can live at all in the tre- 
mendous pressure about her. She is twenty, and her 
name is Philippina. 

A red carpet is rolled down the steps and across 
the pavement. She steps royally across it and enters 
the motor-car that persists in looking sinister; the 
door is closed, and in one minute the square is dark 
again, and its odd deity remains pointing at the police- 
man’s cape. 

In an hour from this time the streets are nearly 
empty — empty, but burning hot. The few people 
abroad suffer from a sensation of choking. The 
last omnibuses have gone; cabs remain in long lines 
here and there for late revellers. One notices now the 
broken people, the people this great dragon of a city 
has crushed and thrown aside — the beggars and tramps, 
the women in tawdry finery, the men out of work in 
well-brushed suits that once fitted other people, the 
scavengers, the hungry, the gaol birds, the birds of 
prey that slink by railings and avoid the eyes of 
policemen. 


4 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


The voice, the snarling, vicious voice of the great 
city, is quietened now to a threatening drone. 

Then, as if some fury of temper had swept over 
the dragon whose maw is never full, and whose claws 
crush the suburbs and whose tail lashes the slums, 
the skies are ripped open and a vivid blinding light 
shows for one instant the benches full of outcasts, the 
groups of cabmen, the helmets of the police, and then, 
in awful darkness, comes peal after peal of thunder. 
Then rain in big hot drops, in quicker drops, in tor- 
rents, blotting out everything. 

Men and women dash for shelter, rags are drenched, 
the cover of a coffee-stall sags with water, police- 
men appear shining and mysterious, the covers of 
cabs reflect every flash of lightning. Windows are 
opened and hastily shut; into ball-rooms, houses, 
nurseries, the thunder sends a penetrating sound. 
Men driving cumbersome market carts pull sacks in 
vain over their heads and shoulders, while their horses 
stagger and slip on the greasy roads. 

That light in the window there is because a child 
is being born. That light is because a man is dying. 
That sudden black knot of people round the hospital 
is there because two of those terrified animals they 
call cabs have hurled themselves at each other. And 
in the cries of pain, of death, of childbirth there comes 
always the low murmur of the relentless energy of the 
city. 

And, suddenly, one sees the agonized pale face of 
a running thief, panting for breath, with the law behind 
him. 


CAPRICE 


5 


II. CAPRICE 

At four o’clock in the morning a Pierrot and a 
Troubadour came out of the Embankment entrance 
of the Savoy each smoking a cigarette and each with 
his face turned to the sky. 

“Topping air,” said the Pierrot. 

“It smells like daisies,” said the Troubadour. 

“All right, old chap,” said the Pierrot. “A little 
whisky and soda and so to bed — what?” 

As they spoke a motley crowd of Knights, Devils, 
Dutchmen, Kings, and Costermongers with their 
attendant ladies brushed past them and were packed 
into cabs by kind Commissionaires. Shepherdesses 
and Chinamen gravely bade good night to Queens and 
Jesters, and giving addresses all over London vanished 
silently into the night. 

Later King Charles would have difficulties in finding 
the key of his flat; and dainty Pierrettes would kiss 
drowsy mammas in Kensington, while a few rash and 
very youthful spirits would brave the sunlight on 
Hampstead Heath. 

And later still the ball-room cleaners would sweep 
up several fragments of broken hearts and a great 
many more broken promises and think nothing about 
it. It was their job. 

Cabs would be warmed or chilled by kisses given 
or refused. And to the world’s great lumber-room 
there would be added lost Shepherd’s crooks, dainty 
pieces of lace and ribbons, handkerchiefs given as 
gages, ball programmes, reputations and unseen melt- 
ing glances from beautiful or daring eyes. 


6 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


The little whisky and soda having become two 
more, it happened that when the Pierrot emerged he 
was cursing because some one had taken his coat, 
and the Troubadour, who wore a cloak and looked 
very romantic, was angry because there were no 
cabs. 

“Why on earth,” he said to the Pierrot, “you 
didn’t tell Jakes to bring the car beats me into a 
cocked hat.” 

“You’d look rotten in a cocked hat,” said the Pierrot, 
who had recovered his temper. “Besides, I’m going 
to walk.” 

“In that kit!” 

“I haven’t looked a silly ass all the evening,” 
said the Pierrot, “so I don’t see why I should now.” 

The Troubadour stood a little apart from his friend 
and regarded him solemnly. 

“It will be like one of Willette’s drawings,” he said. 
“Come on.” 

It was quite true. The white face, skull cap, white 
clothes and the gray morning light made the 
picture. 

“Black cats are more than coronets,” said the 
Troubadour laughing. 

“I don’t know what you mean, but I bet we get 
rotted,” said the Pierrot. “Anyhow, me for home.” 

One might think the City was the kindest, mild- 
est place, breathing nothing but peace and good- 
will. The very pavements smiled. The colors were 
soft and melodious, Trafalgar Square beamed upon 


CAPRICE 


7 


them. Kindly policemen, versed in the ways of youth, 
bade them go cheerily on their way. And if there 
slunk away from them sodden rags that clothed a 
human body and sour looks that showed a starving 
soul, the easy benediction “Poor devils” brushed 
misery aside. 

Piccadilly herself was an invitation, and in the 
silver light looked like a path between Palaces, if 
one forgot the Hospital the other end. 

They passed the Colonnade of the Ritz and stopped 
to look across the Green Park. How grateful every 
tree, every blade of grass looked for the bath of rain. 
The Tower of the Catholic Cathedral stood up like a 
silver stem against the sky. The Westminster sil- 
houette seen through the trees was a fairy picture. 

The Pierrot, who had been chattering about the 
chances of a certain horse, became silent. His friend 
leaned against the railings. “We are in our real 
clothes, Tim,” he said. “You a sort of happy, mel- 
ancholy, volatile chap, all love affairs and no love. 
Me a gloomy bard crying for Romance.” 

“Rot!” said Sir Timothy Swift. “You’re in the 
Guards.” 

“Being in the Guards isn’t life.” 

“Then what is life? Oh, shut up!” said Timothy. 
“This is all bunkum. Or it is the last whisky and 
soda; or it’s — what is it?” 

“The morning when everything is washed clean 
all ready to be made dirty again.” 

“Do they stand this stuff at the Tower?” asked 
Timothy, very much impressed. 


8 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I tried very hard to fall in love to-night,” said 
George Weatherby, the Troubadour, “but it wasn’t 
any good.” 

“The little Dresden girl?” 

“No, certainly not. The woman in the green dream, 
the woman with the eyes like yesterday.” 

“Oh, Ina Poundberry. Whew!” 

“I wish you wouldn’t profane the morning, my 
dear Tim. I particularly didn’t want to know her 
name. One falls in love with woman, not with indi- 
viduals. If one is in love one is always charmingly 
unhappy.” 

Timothy stood puzzled, and then his face lit as with 
a brilliant idea. “Ham and eggs,” he said. 

The Troubadour frowned at him. “Oh, you’re 
impossible,” he said. “You’ve got no romance, 
you bally idiot. You never read. You never think. 
And you are never serious.” 

“I have a sovereign,” said Timothy. “And we 
might expend it at the Junior Turf Club, which is 
just here. In fact the Cab Shelter.” 

“Speaking of ham and eggs,” said Weatherby 
dreamily, “reminds me of a little woman at 
Staines ” 

“Look here,” said Timothy, interrupting and swing- 
ing his friend round, “do you pose or are you real?” 

“I never know,” said Weatherby. Then he laughed, 
and his voice changed to the ordinary young man’s 
dragging accent. “It’s a relief sometimes to drop out 
of the ordinary way, don’t you think so? You see 
I’m cooped up with a lot of fellers who think like Racing 


CAPRICE 


9 


Calendars and never dare let go. Why mayn’t we let 
go sometimes? The Colonel writes poetry, old San- 
dridge thinks of nothing but music, but the rest of 
the chaps may or may not be bits of the Army and 
Navy Stores. I don’t know.” 

Early as it was there were three men in the cab- 
shelter drinking coffee out of thick cups and eating 
huge platefuls of fried eggs. 

“Look at the mummers,” said one, as Timothy 
and George entered. 

“ Give us a song, guv’nor.” 

“He ain’t a song-bird, he’s a acroback.” 

“My treat,” said Timothy. “What’ll you have?” 

As he spoke one of the men looked at him closely. 
“I think I’ve drove you, sir, Melbury Road?” 

“That’s right!” said Timothy, laughing. “Come 
on, ham and eggs and coffee, boss, for two.” 

As they sat eating the side issues of London were 
discussed before them. The mean and generous 
fares, the odd happenings, the men who shot them- 
selves in cabs, the women who ran away, the thieves 
who had been driven, the detectives who had fol- 
lowed them. One of the men was in the middle of 
an extraordinary story of how he drove two gentle- 
men in evening dress into Epping Forest where they 
met two others, also in a cab, how two had stripped 
and fought in silence, when there was a crash, a shout in 
the street. Instantly every man left his place and ran 
out. 

In the road two horses attached to a big market 
wagon were slipping and plunging, threatening every 


10 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


moment to turn the wagon over. The driver, who had 
been asleep, lay a crushed heap in the road where he 
had been thrown. A policeman was running with 
two other men. Timothy was there first. The mo- 
ment one saw him run one saw the perfect stride of 
the accomplished sprinter. 

The end of it was one of London’s peculiar pic- 
tures. Two horses quivering and steaming held by 
chauffeurs. A policeman taking notes from a dazed 
man who stood rubbing his arm. A woman of incredi- 
ble age, sprung from nowhere, accepting a cigarette 
from a Pierrot and having it politely lit for her by a 
Troubadour. And cherries from the fallen baskets all 
over the road. And nobody seemed surprised. 

Weatherby walked home to his rooms in St. James’s 
Street. And Timothy Swift, refusing a cab, continued 
on his way down towards Kensington. 

III. FANTASIA 

Had one put Timothy’s own words to his thoughts 
one would have found them to be “It’s awfully jolly.” 
Not that “awfully jolly” was in the least what he 
meant, but that his was a limited vocabulary. He was 
thinking of the sparkling freshness of the morning, of 
the splendor of being young, of the quaintness of his ad- 
ventures, and of the several fair ladies he had flirted 
vigorously with in the course of the evening. To have 
met with one of them now would have made the morn- 
ing perfect. 

He was twenty-five, without parents, brothers or 
sisters. He had plenty of money, sound limbs, no 


FANTASIA 


11 


cares, and had been expensively educated to do noth- 
ing as well as possible. 

George Weatherby’s suggestion that it was a day 
in which to fall in love fitted exactly to his mood. He 
wished he could. 

The few people round the coffee-stall at Hyde 
Park Corner gave him a jesting “Good morning.” 
He replied in the same spirit. 

He felt so freakish and inconsequent (perhaps 
the genie of his clothes) that he nearly asked a very 
young policeman in Knightsbridge the nearest way 
to fall in love. And as he passed the Barracks and 
came to the next stretch of Park railings, he was 
undoubtedly one of the happiest men in England, if 
not the world. 

A quarter of a mile farther brought him to another 
adventure. In the middle of the empty road stood 
a taxi-cab, the bonnet up, and a puzzled, perspiring 
driver scratching his head. 

“Broken down?” Timothy sang out. 

And immediately a head of wonderful beauty looked 
through the open window. Three strides brought 
Timothy to the door. “I say,” he said, “can I help?” 

“IPs an awful bother, thanks,” said the vision. 

Timothy looked up and down the road. “There 
isn’t a cab in sight,” he said. 

“Well, I can’t go any farther,” said the driver. 

Timothy held the door open and the vision actually 
took his hand and thanked him with her eyes. It was 
a supreme moment. From a fairy purse of gold she 
paid the man, and then, picking her way carefully, so 


12 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


that she might not soil her silver shoes, she walked by 
Timothy to the pavement. 

She was dressed in something that sparkled and 
shimmered in the morning light, a short skirt of silver 
gauze, with a cloak of some transparent stuff that 
shines and seems to reflect all the colors under the sun; 
and a live star twinkled in her hair. She was so fragile 
and slender and white that he wondered she could really 
be alive. 

So he said, “You were at the Murchisons , . ,, 

And she replied, “How clever of you!” 

And he answered, “I’m not clever, but how could I 
forget?” 

Said she, “I don’t see how you could remember, 
as I wasn’t there.” 

This rather took his breath away, so he said, “I 
don’t believe you have been anywhere. I believe 
you are always like this.” 

So the fairy answered, “Have you got a cigarette?” 

Very presently there it was, warm between her 
lips, and she puffing away for all the world like any 
ordinary mortal. 

Then Timothy said, “I say, let’s be mad and walk.” 

She answered, “In these shoes?” and laughed. 

Said Timothy, “But you tread on air.” 

And she answered, “Thanks very much, dear 
stranger, but please find me a cab.” 

But he couldn’t. One can’t. 

“Isn’t it romantic?” he suggested. 

“Are you Irish?” said the fairy. 


FANTASIA 


13 


“Half. Are you?” He would have said anything, 
but he was nearly half. 

“No,” she replied, “I have no Romance. I’m 
altogether English. My father’s a brewer.” 

“He brews nectar,” said Timothy. 

“Beer,” she corrected. “Well, I suppose we must 
walk.” 

“To Eternity,” said Timothy, feeling very fluttered. 

“If Berkeley Square is Eternity. Number 154.” 

They started back along Knightsbridge. 

“Weren’t you at the Murchisons’?” said Timothy 
again. 

“Oh, yes, I was really,” she said. “And then I 
went to a mad supper party down here with a girl, 
and we sat up awfully late and — here I am. Mother 
will be sick.” 

“Let us forget Mother and her indisposition,” he 
urged. “Let’s be really mad. I am Pierrot for to- 
night, you are Fairy. I saw you at the Ball, I wor- 
shipped from afar.” 

She looked at him with her deep-blue, laughing 
eyes. “Mr. Pierrot,” she said, “you don’t expect 
me to believe you, do you? And Pierrots are as 
common as cabbage butterflies. And I adored — 
adored — a Troubadour in black.” 

“I say,” said Timothy, “I said, ‘Let’s be mad,’ 
not ‘Let’s talk of George Weatherby.’ ” 

She clapped her hands, laughing at him. “Now I 
know his name, how ripping!” 

“I don’t believe you’re a fairy at all,” said he. 


14 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

“ You’re just a perfectly ordinary person in Fancy 
Dress.” 

“Poor Pierrot!” she answered. “Was he hurt?” 

He was silent for a moment, but a look into her eyes 
gave him laughter again. 

“Isn’t it rum,” he began, “two daring people 
defying ” 

“There’s a cab!” she cried. 

Without troubling to look at it, he said,“ Engaged.” 

“I can’t walk all the way home,” she said. 

“Do walk a little farther,” he pleaded. “It is so 
wonderful to be able to talk to a girl who understands 
you. I believe you would understand me better than 
any girl I know. Most girls would be so stupid about 
walking madly about like this.” 

“Do you know many girls?” she asked innocently. 

But he saved himself in time. “Very, very few,” 
he replied earnestly. “I don’t really care for girls. 
Now, you!” 

“Now, me!” she insisted. 

“You are more of a dream than a girl.” 

“I wish men wouldn’t think we are different. I 
am not a dream. At present I want another ciga- 
rette, more chocolate, and a cab. Dreams don’t 
take cabs.” 

“I’ve been in a cab with a dream,” said Timothy. 

“One of your own?” 

“I think it must have been about you. It was 
about some one I always wanted to meet and never 
could. And now ” 


FANTASIA 


15 


“And now we are nearly at Berkeley Square, where 
all good dreams die.” 

“I say, you’re awfully clever for a girl,” said 
Timothy. 

“With the very limited experience you mentioned 
just now,” she answered, “I should think you were 
very clever about girls.” 

“Now you are sarcastic, and fairies aren’t sarcastic.” 

“What are they, Mr. Pierrot?” 

“They are dark and mysterious and little and 
jolly, and they wear silver shoes and they break 
people’s hearts into little bits,” he answered. 

“That Irish half of you is awfully persistent, isn’t 
it?” 

“It gives one the blues, you know,” said Timothy, 
“but it gives you a heap of life besides.” 

“Ought I to say, ‘ Thank you very much for your 
kind flirt’?” she asked. 

“Don’t be unkind,” said he. 

They turned into Berkeley Square. 

“I think you’ve been ripping,” she said. “And 
we have passed heaps of cabs and I’ve said nothing.” 
Then she spoke more seriously. “I say, isn’t life 
splendid, I mean these kind of bits of it: these sort 
of joy rides. Isn’t it jolly to be young and go 
to dances, and sit up late, and meet jolly people. 
And ” 

They both stopped. From one of the houses came 
a long cry of pain. 

“The Almiracs,” she said, with her teeth clenched. 
“He beats her when he comes home drunk.” 


16 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

“What a damn shame !” said Timothy. “The 
swine !” 

The Fairy gave a little sigh. “She loves him,” she 
said. 

Timothy put out his hand. “Tell me who you 
are?” he asked. “I haven’t met anybody for years 
who I — who I ” 

“Who you walked home all alone with because 
the moonlight had got into your head. Please, Mr. 
Pierrot, could you make a noise like a taxi, because 
Mother sleeps awfully lightly, and is sure to listen for 
me coming home in her sleep.” 

“My name is Timothy Swift,” he said, “and I’ll 
do my best to make the noise, only please tell me 
who you are, so that we can meet again in the ordinary 
world.” 

“Here’s the door. Whisper. Make the noise first.” 

He put forth his best powers and did an imaginary 
taxi-cab, both wheels and a hoot, very badly. 

“Now tell me your name,” he begged. 

She opened the door and stood in the doorway. 
“Flip,” she whispered, and closed the door swiftly but 
silently. 

It was Miss Philippina Newberry. 

“Cab, sir?” said a voice at his elbow, so close that 
he jumped. Then again, but quite close too, came that 
cry of pain. 

“Cab, rather!” said Timothy, full of anger. 

“That’s old Newberry beating his wife,” said the 
cabman. But Timothy did not hear. 


CHAPTER II 


A MAN OF FASHION 

A MAN called Fellowes looked after Sir Timothy’s 
** person: a man called Walters looked after Sir 
Timothy’s garden: a man called Jakes looked after 
the motor-cars: a man also called Fellowes, brother 
to the other, was butler to him: there were besides 
men of law who looked after his business, farmers 
who looked after his farms, and bailiffs who looked 
after them. And there were a lot of women who 
cooked and waited and brushed and cleaned; and all 
for the comfort of the comfortable young man who 
eyed the morning sunlight with blinking eyes and 
thrust a pink-silk pajama’ d arm out for his early tea. 

Fellowes, an old man with a white necktie known 
as a choker, was folding and putting away his clothes. 
The Fellowes below stairs was busying himself with 
preparations for breakfast. In the household of busy 
figures only Sir Timothy lay abed, a swathed and 
lazy drone. 

“Get the Directory, Albert,” he said, “and look up 
154, Berkeley Square.” 

The old man, who had been Timothy’s father’s 
servant, left the room. 

As soon as he had closed the door, Timothy leapt 
out of bed and examined himself in the long looking- 
glass. 


17 


18 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Haven’t got all the beastly stuff off yet,” he 
murmured, still seeing patches of last night’s Pierrot 
white on his face. “Did I look like a fool? Am I an 
ass? Yes.” 

The door opened, and the man appeared. “Name 
of Newberry, sir. James Newberry.” 

“A brewer and not knighted?” said Timothy. 
“There must be something the matter with his politics. 
Shave.” 

Picture: Young Gentleman being shaved by old 
and faithful servant. Lilac-colored bath robe, Shera- 
ton mirror, safety razor, slight sprinkling of Lavender 
salts in the water, Persian slippers. Outside a cab- 
rank with May sunlight splashing the cabs through 
plane trees; the voice of London like a comfortable 
drone, warm and lazy, hiding the hideous undercurrent 
of the song. 

Pale-faced clerks going to work; very actressy- 
looking actresses going on the tops of omnibuses to 
rehearsals with some of last night’s make-up still on. 
Shop shutters being taken down; people reading fever- 
ishly in the Financial pages of papers. A hurry, jangle, 
turmoil all over the vast city where the picturesque 
and the obscene jostle elbow to elbow, where every- 
body is crowding everybody, where murderers are eat- 
ing eggs, and honest men are licking the banana skins 
from the gutter. And in a retired, peaceful, scented, 
warm corner, a young athelete being shaved. 

“Flip!” 

“Beg pardon, Sir Timothy, did I cut you?” 


A MAN OF FASHION 


19 


“No,” the lazy voice answered. “Something else 
cut me. Cigarette. Bath.” 

A quarter of an hour at the punch ball, a quick, 
invigorating bath, half a cigarette, breakfast. Things 
handed silently, everything in a glow of comfort, a 
bowl of crimson ranunculus on the table and a young 
man idly peeing a banana. 


If for one moment he could have seen the banana 
market with the great carts piled high with the golden 
fruit, with dirty men cursing as they lift the big stems, 
and the clerk in a monotonous voice repeating the num- 
bers as he ticks them off on the invoice. Horses tossing 
chaff from their nose-bags, and women nearly naked 
to the waist and incredibly filthy hanging round watch- 
ing, with dough-faced children in their arms! 

“James,” said Timothy to the other Fellowes, 
“ring up Mr. George Weatherby and tell him to 
lunch with me at the Stag Club, if he isn’t on duty. 
Tell Jakes to have the car round at twelve. And 
where the devil is the — oh, here it is.” 

“You are lunching with Mr. Tempest to-day, sir.” 

“Oh! Well, James, one of our finest excuses, not 
toothache or influenza, something like — detained owing 
to the death of a favorite canary, anything you like.” 

George Weatherby could come. Sir Timothy was 
reminded that he was leaving for the Eastern Counties 
at four o’clock. The car arrived and Jakes received 


20 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


the following amazing order: “ Drive to Berkeley 
Square and when I tell you drive very slowly. I want 
to look at a house.” 

How very different was London in the morning, 
her voice was nearly feminine, hundreds of women 
passing by the big plate-glass windows of shops; 
children darting into Kensington Gardens; men with 
huge trays of flowers that seemed to light the street 
with colored flames. The swish of silk, the subdued 
murmur of millinery, the pungent smell of tobacco on 
the air, mingling with many perfumes, and Sir Timothy 
Swift gliding by seated in luxury in his big car like any 
Roman patrician driving through the mob. An ele- 
phant going through the Parrot House at the Zoo would 
have much the same effect. 

In the midst of such overpowering surroundings 
one loses sight of the man. It is not easy for the 
world to understand a happy man, and still less easy 
to understand that happy men are the most profound. 
They think and know only the big simple things, as 
children know them. Clothes, food and love occupy 
their days, and life is always providing constant sur- 
prises in each of these departments. Of backgrounds 
they know nothing as they are always in the front of the 
picture. If they are religious, they go straight to God 
fearlessly; if they are of the world, they enjoy the world, 
its sunlight, flowers, beautiful people and things rap- 
turously. They are all lovers. By love they do not 
mean the scorching breath of passion that devours and 
burns the unhappy, but a wholesale and indiscriminate 
embrace that treats all people as equals. They are 


A MAN OF FASHION 


21 


a race apart and little understood, and they irritate 
those who see themselves by introspection and are 
ready to find dust in every room and sinks of iniquity 
in every family. And all unconsciously they benefit 
the world at every turn by smiling and by stray chance 
passages of affection that are never, never lost. The 
difference between the heart and the liver. 

Timothy on his way to town gave priceless gifts 
away; he smiled at children, he smiled, in a more 
subdued way, at pretty girls, he bowed to old ladies 
who crossed perilously before his car. And when 
the trees and flowers blew their scents to him, and 
the children smiled back their complete understand- 
ing, he thought to himself, “What a topping day!” 
And arrived at Berkeley Square intoxicated. 

(Of course such a man would walk down a slum 
street where disease, poverty, hunger and dirt were 
masters, and see nothing but the sunlight on a pot 
of musk in an upper window. But, did he own that 
street, there would be flowers in every window and 
meals on every table. As it so happens, the world, 
taught by intellectual instead of stupid people, will 
not recognize that love is a cure for everything and 
with enough love such streets could not exist. But 
then, all such streets are owned by unhappy men.) 

“Drive slowly and pass 154.” 

In the daylight it did not look like the dwelling 
place of a butterfly Princess, and, as a matter of 
fact, neither did it announce the brewer. It was 
merely a house built by an unimaginative man, for 
unimaginative people to live in, and so was a great 


22 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


success. Timothy’s eyes fastened themselves on an 
upper window where a row of flower-pots bloomed. 
“Her window,” he tried to sigh. “Drive to the 
Stag Club,” he siad. 

It was the cook’s window, as it happened. Philip- 
pina only cared for cut flowers. But love is blind. 

One can judge of the Stag Club by the hats: they 
are made to cover only the most fashionable heads. 
The hall-porter has only to look at the hats to know 
exactly who is in the club. And the walking-sticks 
are a dream. There are no married men in the Stag 
Club, except the waiters. The hall-porter who has 
been there thirty-five years, regards hall-portering as a 
priesthood and the Stag as a Temple. It is whispered 
that he refused to marry the Earl of Hackney’s cook 
and that she died and left him everything. Any- 
how, plenty of the Stags have borrowed of him late 
at night. 

There was a letter for Timothy from his uncle, 
a letter like a telegram. Oliver Swift wrote letters 
like that because he considered telegrams should only 
be sent in cases of dangerous illness or great business 
pressure. “Glad to see you. I will have six-thirty 
met. — Oliver.” 

Timothy tore it up, and entered the smoking-room. 

The room was occupied by a long thin being, so 
thin that the creases of his trousers took up most 
of his leg. He was on his back in a deep chair, and 
appeared to be undergoing a kind of burial in illus- 
trated papers which were heaped up all around him. 
On a table by his side stood a tall glass half full of 


A MAN OF FASHION 


23 


whisky and soda, and a hand rested on the table, 
holding a cigarette-holder a foot long. As Timothy 
caught sight of him the events of the night came 
clearly before him. This was Lord Almirac, and she 
had said, “He beats her when he comes home 
drunk.” Then if Almirac were married he wouldn’t 
be a member of the Stag. 

“Mornin’, Swift.” 

“Didn’t know you lived in Berkeley Square,” said 
Timothy. 

“Guess again, dear boy. What the dooce made 
you think so? Live in St. James’s Place.” 

So she had lied. 

“Don’t know what made me ask. Have a drink?” 

“ Got one, dear boy.” 

Timothy rang the bell. “Have another.” The 
whisky and soda vanished in one gulp. 

“Do you happen to know anyone called Newberry?” 
said Timothy. 

The young man raised himself with extreme care. 
“Nuberry — Nuberry? Oh, yes. Little bit of a thing 
with rather jolly eyes. Father, brewer. They say 
he knocks his wife about. Cheer-O.” 

Timothy flushed and clenched his fists. “Poor 
little girl,” he thought. 

“Father,” went on Lord Almirac, “not a bad chap. 
Likes his grub. Beefsteak Nuberry, they call him. 
I don’t believe the story. Have you backed Ipswich?” 

“No,” said Timothy. “I do.” 

“Do what, dear boy?” 

“I think it’s true he knocks her about. Swine!” 


24 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“With you, dear boy, with you. Swine let it be. 
Have a cocktail?” 

“No, thanks. Do they say he does it often?” 

“’Bout once every six months, they say. Damn 
shame. What? Handsome woman. One of the Wel- 
kins of Norfolk, I’m told. Jolly little flapper. They 
tell me dances well.” 

“Yes.” 

“Know her?” 

“No.” 

“Oh!” 

“Of course it may not be true,” said Timothy. 

“Of course. I say, saw funny thing last night. 
One of those white fellers, Pierrots, walking about 
with a girl in a sort of shiny stuff. Odd in Town; 
thought I’d overdone it for the moment. Rum place, 
Town.” 

“What were you doing at that hour?” said Timothy, 
glad of his disguise. 

“Driftin’ about, dear boy, driftin’ about. I get 
so bored sometimes I get into a cab and say, ‘Push 
her about for an hour.’ Night air, they tell me, 
good for the brain.” 

“You must see any number of queer things,” said 
Timothy. 

“Rather. Can’t hide in Town, you know. Once 
told the guv’nor I was peggin’ away at Sandhurst 
and the old man saw me handin’ a lady out of a carriage 
on the Cinema Things. Beastly shame: I mean what’s 
private life cornin’ to, eh?” 


A MAN OF FASHION 


25 


“I don’t know,” said Timothy, still wondering 
about the girl. “Anything in the papers?” 

“Nothin’. There never is. Hallo, here’s George.” 

George Weatherby came striding across the room. 
“Hallo, Almirac. Tim, good. I’m beastly hungry.” 

They sat together at a little table facing the Park, 
all its mystery gone now, a mere swirling mass of 
tress, humanity and sky. And here Timothy told 
the story of his night’s adventures: told it in his 
own ineloquent language and waited for his friend’s 
reply. 

“Oh, you lucky devil!” said Weatherby. “I never 
have adventures and you, you without a scrap of 
Romance in you, knock up a piece of perfect poetry. 
Well — are you smit?” 

“She’s rather a jolly girl,” said Timothy. 

Weatherby banged his fist on the table so hard that 
a waiter hurried up with the wine-list. 

“I’m so sorry!” said Timothy. “I’ve been talking, 
and I forgot. What will you drink?” 

“Drink!” said Weatherby. “Burgundy. Red wine, 
man, is what you want. A jolly girl! You meet a 
sylph in the street at daybreak and escort her home 
under the most romantic circumstances, and you call 
her rather a jolly girl.” 

“Well,” said Timothy humbly, “I did think she 
was rather jolly.” 

Weatherby leaned across the table. “I wonder 
what you are made of?” he asked. “I think you 
must be inhuman or imbecile. Don’t women make 
your heart beat? Don’t they lift you clean up out 


26 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


of your rotten little rut? I tell you, I’m a roman- 
tic man and no romance ever comes my way, and 
you — are you callous, or bored, or what in the world 
are you?” 

They could discuss a little flimsy tinsel idyll, a 
little gossamer morning dream like this, with the 
May sunlight on them, and a tremendous sense of 
cold water and health about them, but the things 
that vex the world sped by them uncounted. Cubist 
painting, new music, Socialism, the growth and decay 
of nations, Labor movements, Education, were all as 
nothing to them. They were young animals, faithful, 
pleasant young animals who would have fought and 
died for that abstract idea “King and Country”; to 
whom cricket, hunting, racing, the condition of grouse 
and the chances of a good dinner weighed more than 
the enormous pressing weight that was even now around 
them. Of the conditions that made the isolated com- 
fort of the Stag Club possible, they knew nothing. 
One wonders what would be their state of mind if they 
were suddenly confronted with only one of the truths 
of the great city they lived in, if for one instant they 
might see a thousand hungry children looking up at 
the Club windows as they ate Peche Melba and ordered 
old brandy and big cigars. A thousand white, miserable 
faces, some plain, some subtly beautiful, some imbecile 
and others stamped with vice; small children holding 
out pitiful hands for mere bread. Would they ever 
have realized that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven? 

They toyed with the little flirtation as connois- 
seurs bend eagerly over the watermark of a stamp. 


A MAN OF FASHION 


27 


They put forth ideas that might make further ac- 
quaintance amusing, and in one was the true Gift of 
the Spirit moving darkly, and in the other a courage 
that could face death calmly and in that very moment 
regretting that he had not shaved. 

They did not know that they were both idealists; 
they did not know that realism is only the sight of 
the eyes, while idealism is the eyes of the heart. The 
ordinary facts of life did not really impress them; they 
did not stop to consider why they were here: they went 
on, like children, by the promptings of singularly clean 
but rather intemperate natures. A portrait of Timothy 
Swift would give you a sharp, slightly Roman, face, 
hair nearly red, a clean red skin, hands very much 
covered with fine, fair hair, a slim body, not over tall, 
and eyes of transcendental blue, the blue of forget-me- 
nots. And there was also the peculiar spring of his 
walk, coming, no doubt, from much training, for he 
had been within an ace of beating the world’s record 
over hurdles. 

George Weather by was of such an opposite figure 
that the dissemblance was almost startling. A big- 
framed man, with dark brown hair, a crisp moustache, 
olive complexion and full red mouth, an unmistakable 
soldier’s face, a little authoritative and not very clever. 
But he had a curious imagination and a certain languid 
wit, gained, perhaps, from his mother, who was half 
Italian. 

Their field of vision was so far limited by their 
education; they had both been put as raw material 
into the sausage-machine of a Public School, and 


28 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


had been turned out along with the rest of the string 
in a neat uniform skin, one as like as another in every 
detail. They had been to a university; had been 
stamped with indelible ink, “ Gentleman. Extra Spe- 
cial. Complete Product.” But their souls, the vivid 
flashing fire within that made all of them individuals, 
that soul peering between the bars of the flesh, put 
out delicate fingers, and asked now and again for 
comfort. 

The episode might have died a butterfly death 
had not Almirac lounged up to their table and an- 
nounced that he had asked Mrs. Newberry and her 
daughter to lunch in the following week. The tiny 
thread that was to bind their lives together began 
to twist its first slender coil round them. Like many 
momentous occasions, this appeared to have only a 
trivial importance. 

“Mrs. Nuberry and Philippina are lunchin’ with 
me at the Savoy next Wednesday. I said I was 
luggin’ you chaps along.” 

“Look at the Finger of Fate with its hair brushed,” 
said Weatherby. 

“You never said you knew them as well as that,” 
said Timothy. 

“Wasn’t thinkin’,” said Almirac. “Forgot I owed 
them food. You bumped into me and set me thinkin’, 
don’t you know, and I suddenly got a brain wave. 
Nuberry, I thought, by George, I thought, I ought to 
feed them. So I got the porter to ring them up, and 
she said, ‘May I bring Philippina?’ So I said 'Good 
idea!’ Wednesday, don’t forget. George, shove it 


A MAN OF FASHION 


29 


down for Wednesday, Savoy. I’m askin’ Grace Ettrick; 
nice girl, Grace. You know Grace Ettrick, Swift? 
Red girl with jolly teeth. So long.” 

“ Well, there you are,” said Weatherby when Almirac 
had lounged away. 

“ Philippina,” Timothy murmured. “ She said Flip.” 


CHAPTER III 


LONDON WITHOUT CLOTHES 

T O show how a woman, merely because she is 
a woman, will occupy a man’s mind, Timothy 
forgot all about the four o’clock train, and at pre- 
cisely five minutes past four was sitting in nothing 
but a small towel in the smoking-room of a Turkish 
Bath. Round about him in various attitudes of 
great ease were men of every shape and size, gross, 
dreadful men striving to reduce their superfluous 
fat; lean, athletic men getting down to a certain 
weight; men who had lived over-well the night before; 
tired men seeking a few hours’ rest and peace, and men 
obviously taking their first Turkish bath for the sake 
of experience. 

As he had walked down St. James’s Street the 
sun was making all kinds of pictures, and, by the 
same token, the clouds were helping him. First 
snow-white castles appeared towering over St. James’s 
Palace, while the sun threw that beautiful building 
into deep shadow. Then the clouds grew gray and 
dark and the sun blazed on the Palace and threw the 
street into gloom; and then huge fantastic cloud-shapes 
piled themselves high over the street, dwarfing every- 
thing, for which picture the sun discreetly retired and 
left an even gray monotone of houses against the billow- 
ing masses of white. Very, very few people paused to 


LONDON WITHOUT CLOTHES 31 

notice these pictures painted by the oldest Masters in 
the world. 

Timothy turned down a side street filled with 
light, cabs, carts and hurrying pedestrians, and entered 
the Crescent Baths. The taking off of shoes, the 
putting away of all personal ornament, of money, in a 
box, the reduction from a name to a number, were all 
like a restful ceremony. The sudden change from the 
life and jostle of the pavements to this warm, quiet 
place, domed like a mosque, gave him a feeling of pass- 
ing from Vulgaria to Rome. 

There sat London’s great preacher with a tousled 
mop of hair, a little, insignificant figure; there a prize- 
fighter sat like a gladiator; there a blotched face topped 
a god’s body; and the splash of water and the murmurs 
of the massaged went on; and the fragrant scent of 
soap filled the air. 

London rolled on over head, out of sight, out of 
hearing, whilst here sat sweating the preacher who 
moved her thousands, the comedian who ruled laughter 
as the wind rules the surface of the sea, the prize- 
fighter to whom thousands paid homage, the financier 
whose manipulations caused markets to open or close 
like the mouths of sea-anemones. And here Sir 
Timothy Swift sat with a cigarette between his lips 
wondering how much that he felt about Miss Newberry 
was serious and how much just part of that game 
of life he had played since woman first swam into 
his ken. 

There had been Gladys and Daisy, Joan, Emily 
and Henriette — Henriette, that snake-like dark woman 


32 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


like a crimson camellia growing in the hot shadow of a 
southern wall. When he had told his uncle Oliver 
about Henriette, Oliver had smoked silently for ten 
minutes, and had then said, “So you think you would 
like to marry this charming Frenchwoman ?” And 
Timothy, who was then twenty-three and on fire, 
replied, “ It's difficult to say, but I simply must.” Then 
Oliver had nodded sagely several times, and had then 
requested that the wedding might be put off for a 
month so that he could attend. No one but Oliver 
knows what Oliver did* but there was no wedding, and 
the name “Henriette” is not mentioned in that house. 

And now it was Philippina. And as Timothy 
thought of that, he remembered his uncle, and the 
four o’clock train, and he became suddenly scared, 
because, since he had forgotten his train thinking 
of her, this might be being in love, which is a serious 
and very frightening thing. However, there was 
nothing for it now but to catch a later train after 
submitting himself to the hands of the masseur. 

At this moment two men passed through the cur- 
tains into the hot room, one a spare lad of about 
twenty and the other an enormous man with gray 
hair and a big, voluptuous face, square-jawed and 
hook-nosed like one of the Roman Emperors. The 
young man greeted Timothy joyfully. “You here, 
Swift?” 

Timothy’s mind sought for the boy’s name. “Wel- 
kin! Yes, I’ve been getting a bit off.” 

“This is my uncle, Mr. Newberry.” 

The two semi-naked men, togaed and towelled, 


LONDON WITHOUT CLOTHES 


33 


greeted one another in the telegraphic fashion of the 
day. “How de do.” “How de do.” 

The three sat down and amiably perspired to- 
gether. And this was the man who beat his wife 
when he came home drunk! It seemed impossible. 
Philippina’s father! 

There are some men who have been ruined by 
their own charm. People, women especially, fall 
easy victims to an inborn irresistible manner. They 
start very often by a hatred of being disliked and 
bring all their charm to bear upon strangers to whom 
they have just been introduced. They marry at 
the highest moment of their susceptibility and never 
trouble to charm their wives afterwards. They 
make love to their daughters when they are only 
just out of the cradle and forget them when they 
are growing up. The world in general never finds 
them out, the world in particular loathes them with 
a deadly loathing as it loathes snakes. Newberry 
was one of these men. His massive handsomeness 
was impressive, his voice was very clear and musical; 
he had the finest polish in manners and the culture 
of a much-travelled Englishman. He had broken 
many women’s hearts, destroyed homes, ruined men, 
but he had never beaten a dog, said a cross word to a 
child, and would have half-killed a man who ill-treated 
a horse. He charmed Timothy. He forgot the seven 
o’clock train. 

As Newberry talked so visions of the Desert grew 
before Timothy’s eyes, so tigers crouched in jungles, 
so celebrated French actresses smirked in their dressing- 


34 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


rooms; a wizard in anecdote, Newberry carried both 
men with him to odd cafes in Constantinople, to camp- 
ing-grounds in Labrador, to bull-fights in Spain. 

Figures stalked past them in the gloom of the 
Baths. In the circular room where men lay like 
fish on marble slabs and were pounded and punched 
and soaped like babies; in the long Divan where 
oddly fresh-looking men smoked and drank coffee, 
Newberry’s charm seemed to pervade the place. 
The three dined together, but it was not until the 
middle of dinner that Timothy ventured to say, “I 
believe I’m to meet your wife and daughter at lunch 
next Wednesday.” 

“Be careful of Flip, she bites!” said Newberry 
laughingly. “Flip’s always out for a scalp.” 

And Timothy nearly said, “She can have mine.” 

So the little odd idyll went on and moved from 
the dawn-lit street into the glare of restaurant lights, 
and so the moonbeam adventure drew unto itself more 
and more actors — Weatherby, Almirac, Newberry — 
until the cast of the play grew longer and more impor- 
tant. And part of the freshness went out of it. 

And when the mail train whirled Timothy away 
into the darkness there were already three scenes 
to the play — A soft rosy-fingered dawn: The Stag 
Club: A Turkish BUth. And the fourth was to be 
“The Manor House, Fenthorpe. Breakfast.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 

HTHE atmosphere of the Manor House at Fen- 
* thorpe was a rebuke to the present day. The 
House as good as folded its hands across its porch, and 
its windows looked sagely on the world, as if to say, 
“Don’t fidget, my children, don’t fidget.” It had the 
air of some huge pot of old pot-pourri, fragrant with the 
dust of two centuries of manners; and in the garden old- 
fashioned flowers grew calmly ignoring the surprising 
feats of modern horticulturists. Old blush roses, the 
York and LancasterRose, moss roses eloquent of senti- 
mental ages; arbors of Clematis and Honeysuckle 
intertwined; a bowling-green bordered on its raised 
banks by beds cut into half-moons and circles. Here 
Red Hot Pokers and Periwinkles grew, and Evening 
Primrose and Night Stock, with Clove Carnations and 
that old-fashioned kind called Painted Ladies. And 
there was an Herb Garden for Thyme and Lavender, 
Sweet Marjoram, Rosemary and Chives. 

Two sea-gulls with dipt wings walked on the upper 
lawn, and an old, rather dilapidated pointer lay sleep- 
ing on the grass. 

At precisely seven o’clock Oliver Swift hobbled 
down the stone garden steps and lowered his bulky 
frame into an iron spring-chair. It was the signal 
for a curious orchestra to commence. Spot, the 

35 


30 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


pointer, thumped with his tail upon the grass, the 
sea-gulls uttered their weird cry like the cry of children 
in distress, ten or fifteen very fat pigeons alighted on the 
ground by the chair, on the old man’s hat, on his 
shoulders, and one, more daring, on his knee; wag- 
tails, with their excited running walk, hurried across 
the grass. 

Oliver Swift first filled and lit his early morning 
pipe, the fourth, as a matter of fact, since half-past 
three, for he slept very badly, and was most of the 
day and night in pain from both gout and dropsy. 
The birds, who knew his every movement, waited. 
Then, putting his left hand into a deep pocket, he 
produced handfuls of corn and crumbs and scattered 
them around his feet. The sight of his uncle sur- 
rounded by birds was always in Timothy’s mind. 
There was always a feeling with Timothy that his 
uncle had been there for ever and ever, and would 
be there for ever and ever in unbroken peace and quiet. 
Oliver Swift was the only man he had ever known who 
gave him the impression of real greatness, the only 
man who carried with dignity the mantle of the great 
Victorian days. His large head with its massive and 
imposing forehead was covered with long silky hair 
parted from back to front and brushed forward in sweep- 
ing curls. His face was framed in whiskers that grew 
from ear to ear under his chin; and his body was so 
exceedingly square that it almost appeared as if his 
legs were put on at the corners. One of the most 
pathetic things about him had happened several years 
before when Timothy was stopping at the House. It 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


37 


was the year in which Oliver Swift found himself un- 
able to walk and unable to shoot for the first time in 
thirty- two years. Timothy was sitting in his study 
with him ready to drive down to the farms to walk 
the fields for partridges. Oliver Swift’s servant brought 
in his shooting-boots, gun and cartridge-bag and stood 
waiting. With a smile of great gentleness Oliver Swift 
held up his swollen foot and measured it against the 
boots. He took up his gun and with an obvious effort 
brought it to his shoulder, opened it, looked down the 
barrels, closed it, and handed it back to his servant. 
“ Henry,” he said very quietly, “I shall never need those 
again.” It was more than Timothy could bear, and 
as he walked quickly out of the room he heard his 
uncle say, “You may put them away with my fish- 
ing rods and all the yachting things in the oak cup- 
board in the hall, and lock the door. I’m an old man 
at last.” 

From that day to this Timothy had never heard 
him grumble or curse his fate, only that he would say 
now and again, and always with the shadow of a smile, 
the terms of his sentence, “I’m beyond it.” It was a 
courage as rare as it was dignified. And it belonged 
to another age. 

As nine clocks more or less struck eight simul- 
taneously, Timothy entered the dining-room. A large 
black cat dozed on a chair by a window, an extra- 
ordinary contrivance for making coffee boiled noisily. 
Oliver Swift bowed to him: he seldom shook hands. 

“Glad to see you, my boy.” 

For many years this had been Timothy’s home. 


38 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


When he was sixteen his father and mother had died 
in Borneo where they had been indulging in their 
passion for orchid hunting. Sir Rollo Swift had been 
made a Baronet partly for political reasons and partly 
for his many interesting discoveries in the botanical 
world, the results of which were now in the Swift 
Collection at South Kensington Museum. His mother, 
who had been an Irish beauty, Eileen O’Doolan, had 
travelled the world over with her husband, living in 
strange countries, in camps, in huts, in anything they 
could find, and between them they had spent a large 
fortune in collecting plants and flowers and in turning 
Holme, their seat in Norfolk, into an Horticultural 
Garden and Museum, which was left to the nation. 

Timothy, whose memory of them was of a huge 
man with a great red beard perpetually looking through 
a microscope, and of a dark, lovely, small woman 
writing labels in a wonderfully neat hand, became 
possessed of several thousand a year derived from lands 
and stock principally in South America. He owned, 
but let, Saint Benets, a large country house, and re- 
tained only a shooting-box and his house in London, 
which had belonged to his mother. 

He came frequently to his uncle for advice. The 
advice young men often seek and seldom get: Hen- 
riette, for example. This time he had come for advice 
of a more delicate kind. For the past two years he 
had felt that curious yearning all young men feel that 
something ought to happen to him. To use Lord 
Almirac’s phrase, he was “ driftin’ about.” And he was 
getting sick of “ driftin’.” In the natural course of 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


39 


events marriage was the something that happened to 
most of his friends, and not a few of them were quite 
insane, so he thought, over little brats with purple 
faces and a perpetual slobber. 

Coming directly to the point, as was his habit, he 
turned from the ham he was carving to his uncle. 

“I say, don’t you think I ought to do something?” 

Oliver Swift, who smoked through all his meals, 
took a puff or two of his pipe and a mouthful of brawn 
before answering, partly because people like Timothy 
generally answer themselves. 

“I mean,” said Timothy, “Fm getting on. I’ve no 
profession and I’ve pots of money which I don’t spend, 
and — well, I’m sick of being a slacker.” 

“The brown fat by the knuckle is the best part of 
that ham,” said his uncle Oliver. 

“Thanks. You know what I mean. Would you 
advise me to go big-game shooting — or — well, get 
married?” 

Oliver Swift was stroking the whiskers under his 
chin when unexpectedly the absurd coffee-machine 
burst into the conversation with a piercing whistle 
and a cloud of steam. 

Oliver Swift turned a tap, blew out the spirit-lamp, 
and with considerable patience drew a cup of coffee 
from several glass tubes and a copper receptacle. 

“Big game,” he said, pouring some hot milk into both 
cups. 

“You really think so?” 

“They are both big game. In one you hit something 
that dashes out of a jungle at you, and in the other you 


40 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


get hit by somebody who dashes into your own private 
jungle. Sugar?” 

“Please.” 

Oliver Swift lit a fresh pipe. Three pipes ready- 
filled were placed in every room every morning. 

“Do you happen to know a man called Newberry, 
a brewer?” said Timothy. 

His uncle appeared to gather inspiration from a 
ring of smoke. “He bought some port at Crewberry’s 
sale in ’78. If he hasn’t drunk it, it has got thin and 
lost its flavor.” 

“I expect that’s the man.” 

“Younger than he looks. He was born the year 
Merry Jonkins won the Gold Cup. What about him?” 

“Nothing. I just happen to have met him.” 

“A daughter?” 

Under cover of lighting his pipe Timothy mur- 
mured, “Quite a child, I believe.” 

“Big game,” said his uncle, looking at the smoke- 
blackened ceiling. 

“You really think I ought to do something,” said 
Timothy. 

“I will join you in the garden when I’ve finished the 
paper. You may give me a hand.” 

Timothy helped the old man out of his chair and 
handed him his stick. He knew it was best to wait 
for his answer. 

When his uncle was moving towards the door he 
looked round at Timothy and touched one of his 
swollen feet lightly. “Once,” he said, “I walked across 
the Andes. I’m beyond it now.” Then he went out 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


41 


of the door. But a glance of great affection passed 
between them. 

There was nothing new and nothing tawdry to be 
found in that house, everything looked as if it had 
always been there, even the many old and better for- 
gotten Masters whose gloomy landscapes, generally of 
storms approaching, stout female bathers, or doll-faced 
people in wigs, had an air of being better than they were. 
China, glass and silver were on every shelf and on most 
tables, and clocks of every sort abounded, clocks in 
front of which Oliver Swift used sometimes to stand as 
if to listen impartially to their arguments about time. 
There was an air of ghosts about the house, but of 
comfortable, bewigged, snuff-taking ghosts, ghosts who 
drank small beer for breakfast and were red with out-of- 
door sports. 

No harsh voice of London sounded here, only coun- 
try sounds that made the peace more peaceful; the 
scream of the saw-mills, the cackle of geese and the 
greedy conversation of guzzling ducks; whips cracking 
in the streets, and the occasional lowing of a cow. 

“For ever and ever,” everything seemed to say, and 
even the butterflies seemed to belong to some collection. 

Impossible to imagine Philippina in such a place. 
She would brim over, hug the un-hugable cat, tease 
the venerable dog, joke with the pompous pigeons, 
and have breakfast in her room. 

Yet the house wanted a woman, so a woman would 
have said. A woman to clear up papers, and peer 
for dust behind pictures, and see that the dog didn’t 


42 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


bring bones into the study, and generally disturb that 
feeling of “for ever and ever.” 

Why did Philippina persist so in Timothy’s brain? 
Was it because she was the last of a long line of flirta- 
tions? Was it because he wanted so badly to fall in 
love really and truly and start a life that should have 
some foundation, a reason for it? He himself could 
not answer these questions. And he very much won- 
dered if his uncle could. 

His uncle seemed perfectly content as a bachelor, 
and Timothy wondered if there had ever been a woman 
in his life. He wondered if he dared to ask him. 

It was twelve o’clock before they met in the garden. 
His uncle’s man called him from the depths of a book 
by Surtees that he was reading, and announced that 
“Mr. Oliver” was in the garden. 

A table stood between two chairs, and a decanter 
of Madeira stood on the table, with biscuits and two 
glasses. 

“I am going to risk a glass of Madeira,” said Oliver 
Swift, pouring out two glasses of wine. 

“Your better health,” said Timothy. 

Oliver Swift looked long and lovingly at his wine, 
smelt it and tasted it. “I shall never be better,” he 
said. “This wine is older than I, and it is still improv- 
ing. When I am dead, it will be quite drinkable. 
Try this tobacco.” 

“I prefer my own, thank you.” 

“Exactly, and your own advice really. Taking 
advice is a blessing men learn too late. Now, sup- 
posing you marry this Miss Newberry — ” 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


43 


“My dear uncle!” 

“I take it, she is not repellent to you.” 

“But I never said — ” 

“if speech were only with the lips, there would be 
few clever women,” said Oliver. 

“I’ve only met her once.” 

“Once is often more than enough.” 

“I don’t think you understand me,” said Timothy. 

“Do you understand yourself?” said his uncle, gazing 
into a cloud of smoke. 

“I came for some advice.” 

“You shall have it,” said Oliver. “Do exactly as 
you mean to do.” 

“She is very pretty.” 

“Newberry was a handsome man.” 

“I met her in an odd way,” said Timothy. 

There was a long pause, filled by the demand of the 
sea-gulls for biscuit. 

“Don’t marry because you have nothing better to 
do,” said Oliver. 

“Look here,” said Timothy, leaning forward eagerly, 
“you know the sort of chap I am. I’ve done the 
Winchester, Oxford business, I’ve had a bit of a fling — ” 

“Seven hundred and fifty odd pounds.” 

“About that; well, what am I now? I go to the Club, 
I go to all the things one does go to, I dress decently, 
I dance devilish well, if you know what I mean, and I — 
well, I do all the whole boiling — but I don’t get any- 
where.” 

“Does this young lady propose to ‘get anywhere,’ 
as you call it?” 


44 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I scarcely know her. It isn’t her, it’s the pur- 
poselessness of it all. Now, you are here, comfortably 
settled with dogs and clocks and the whole thing 
arranged pat.” 

“Yes,” said his uncle, with a weary old smile, “the 
whole thing arranged pat.” 

Then he added, with a twinkle of his eyes, blue like 
Timothy’s, “Only one thing upsets me, and I’m setting 
that right this morning.” 

“Are you bothered?” Timothy asked. But before 
the reply came, James announced, 

“Mr. Delpher to see you, sir.” 

Oliver winked solemnly at his nephew, and said, 
“Show him out here, James, and bring another glass.” 

A man appeared, a smooth, comfortable man in a 
tightly-buttoned black frock-coat, a hat in his hand 
with a deep mourning band round it, a wisp of black 
tie, and a wisp of black hair brushed across a bald head 
beaded with perspiration. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Swift. I hope I see you well, 
sir, and the gentleman.” 

Oliver Swift pointed to a third chair with his pipe. 

“A glass of Madeira will do you no harm, Mr. 
Delpher.” 

‘‘It’s very condescending of you, sir.” 

“Mr. Delpher,” said Oliver, addressing his nephew, 
“combines the arts of picture-dealer and undertaker. 
Mr. Delpher” (who here made a little humble bow) 
“is our great stand-by. After burying our friends 
very neatly he buys their pictures. One good turn 
deserves another.” 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


45 


“Proud, sir,” said Mr. Delpher. “I have a little 
Italian thing that comes from the late-lamented Mr. 
Charles Pinhorn’s collection, a little brace of Cupids, 
amorini, I think is the word, wonderfully pretty, sir, 
and very reasonable.” 

“He’s got his eye on my pictures,” said Oliver, 
smiling. Mr. Delpher made a little protesting gesture. 
“Or he’s a bad businessman. Now, Mr. Delpher, I 
shall take a deal of wood, you know that. Timothy, 
we believe that he has us all secretly measured and 
lays in a stock of wood in readiness. Judges us by 
our backs in church, eh, Delpher?” 

“Your uncle will have his joke,” said Mr. Delpher, 
emptying his glass. 

“Fill Mr. Delpher’s glass,” said Oliver. And here 
Mr. Delpher made another little protesting gesture 
and passed his glass swiftly. 

“Are you going to buy a picture, uncle?” said 
Timothy. 

“No, my boy, I’m going to get a solemn promise 
in writing from Mr. Delpher. Now, sir, if I see you 
out, and you are a liverish man, you know, I want a 
letter from you to be left for your son.” 

“A letter, sir?” said Mr. Delpher, smiling over his 
wine. 

“I’m very proud of the polish on my oak stairs and 
when they carry me down I will not have” — and he 
banged his sticks on the ground — “I will not have 
your men, or your son’s men, wearing great, clumsy, 
hobnailed boots, d’you see? and for every scratch on 


46 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


the banisters or the stairs I shall take a shilling off your 
bill in my will.” 

From the undertaker’s inner pocket a black pocket- 
book appeared. “Rest assured, sir,” he said quite 
calmly, “it shall be attended to.” Then to Timothy, 
“One for his joke, sir, always was. Why, Mr. Swift, 
sir, you are good for twenty years.” 

“Pray God I am not,” said Oliver solemnly. 

Out there in the fair, ordered garden, with swallows 
flying merrily by, the ages-old fragance of flowers, and 
the ordered energy of Spring, Death and the trappings 
of Death seemed part of some subtle Comedy, as if a 
jester donned cap and bells of black and rattled a skull 
in place of a painted bladder. 

Timothy knew his uncle as a punctual being, always 
the same, always imperturbable, kindly, wise, crippled. 
From breakfast until midnight — when he would say 
“You may light the bedroom candlesticks” — he was 
the same urbane gentleman. He did not know the 
man of long sleepless hours of pain: the man who sat 
in his chair by the bedroom window gray with agony, 
silent with age and lack of sleep, watching the dawn 
break of another day. 

For five days no further word was spoken of Timothy’s 
own particular subject. They were quiet days, given 
over to giving apples to the fat gray mare, walking 
down the long Fen roads, eating the good old-fashioned 
meals, and drinking excellent wine. Days given over 
to the creak of windmills, the luxurious sound of the 
mowing machine, the caw of rooks, the hum of bees. 
Five days shut away from modernity, without a tele- 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


47 


phone message, without electric light, or motor- cars, or 
any sign that the world had progressed in several cen- 
turies. And on the sixth day Timothy announced 
his departure. He could bear it no longer, he felt, 
not that he had grown old, but that he had stopped 
growing at all. Here, he felt, one could never live 
nor die: here one went on for ever and for ever. It was 
the garden of a Rip Van Winkle: a legend of Sleepy 
Hollow. 

That night when they were discussing the merits 
of the claret after dinner and before dessert, his uncle 
spoke. 

“I know what you are feeling,” he said. “Tell 
me your feelings for this Miss Newberry.” 

To tell the story of their meeting was like asking 
a butterfly to grow old, like introducing a fairy to a 
horsehair sofa, like presenting a feather with a swim- 
ming bath, or asking a rocket to take notes of the stars 
on the way up; but he did it. He even embroidered 
it a little to make it sound more probable. 

“When I was young,” said his uncle musingly, 
“we used to wrench the door knockers off the doors of 
St. James’s Square, and collect policemen’s tophats, 
and go to Evans’ and the Cider Cellar. Yes, it’s a 
dainty enough story. It’s as good an excuse for paying 
your addresses as any other. Our women were not 
like that; they had no sense of humor, or if they had, 
they hid it. Men liked what they called ‘simple 
women.’ Have you ever met a simple woman, my boy? 
She would be a great rarity. I think some of the women 


48 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


of my day had a great sense of humor, or they would 
never have married the men they did.” 

“Were you ever in love?” said Timothy boldly. 

Oliver Swift lit a fresh pipe and blew a cloud of smoke 
thoughtfully from his mouth. 

“I was in love with your mother.” 

“For ever and ever,” said the peace of the room. 
Wind whispered in the trees outside. The glasses 
sparkled in the candlelight, the fruit glowed, the 
mahogany gleamed, the old crippled bachelor lifted 
his glass and drank slowly. It was something beyond 
Timothy; it was too big. 

Against his dilettante story this was the purple 
and gold of Romance; against the black and white 
of his precious idyll this was a full-blooded picture. 
“A picture by Willette,” George Weatherby had said. 
This was a Giorgione. 

Oliver Swift broke the dangerous silence. “I am 
too old to make new friends, too lame to take new jour- 
neys, too hard and fast to accept new ideas, so I sit here, 
my boy, and wait, and it seems a long and weary time. 
I cannot even live in your youth. You bring much of 
your mother back to me. She was impetuous, quick, 
beautiful. Neither she nor I knew until afterwards. 
That was why I never saw her alone after she was 
married. That was why she followed your father 
to the ends of the earth. That was why she asked 
me in the last letter she ever wrote to be a sort of guar- 
dian to you. 

“I never knew,” said Timothy. 

“I have often wondered,” said the old man, “if 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


49 


she thought of this garden when she was dying. She 
lived three months after your father died: three months 
of torturing fever, carried from the jungle by men in a 
litter for six days, until she reached the coast, and they 
carried your father’s body behind her. It was in this 
garden that we first knew. It was by accident that 
our hands touched — that was all; neither of us spoke, 
but a fire was lit then that has never gone out. So 
I am waiting.” 

“And my father?” said Timothy. 

“Almost the saddest part of all the pitiful business. 
It was not until after the honeymoon that he found 
out that he had never really loved her. He cared for 
her, he was gentle and kind and thoughtful, but she 
was a woman who longed to be adored. That is why 
your father plunged into botany and orchid collecting 
and travel. You see why I am telling you this.” 

“I understand.” 

“Perhaps there is more in you than you know your- 
self. There was in me, there was in your mother. 
Some flowers and some people bloom late. Women 
are fussy, odd, irritating creatures with no power of 
reason, with small meannesses and little ideas, but 
Woman is God’s greatest creation. She rules the world. 
We are her toys, her children, her lovers. She has a 
power of sacrifice no man can ever gauge. No dog 
understands cats. Dogs are like men. Cats have a 
contempt for dogs. I mix my meanings possibly, 
but I’m an old man. To all intents and purposes I am 
a dead man. While you are not yet alive. I wonder 
if you understand me.” 


50 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I think I do. But the world is slipping away; in 
five years I shall be thirty. I must do things.” 

“Things, my boy, as you call it, will do themselves. 
Patience is the virtue of genius and age. In two 
weeks I shall be sixty-five, not old as years go, but 
pain makes one old. Many men of my years are active 
and strong. I’ve had my day; I must wait.” 

“I shall never forget this talk,” said Timothy. 

“You will forget it,” said his uncle, smiling, “as 
soon as the moment comes when youth calls youth. 
You forget I too have been in Lover’s Lane. I too 
have worn tight boots and smoothed my hair and 
written verse and waited in the rain. I’ve prayed 
for a cloud across the moon and heard my heart beat 
against my ribs. The first girl I ever kissed was my 
father’s dairy-maid, and she boxed my ears, and sent 
me a penny cigar next day. I was very sick.” 

“One would never guess all this,” said Timothy, 
smiling. 

“I am not a romantic figure,” said his uncle, pulling 
his whiskers gently. “Finish the claret.” 

“I shall go back to town to-morrow,” said Timothy, 
“and see if I can’t find something to do. The doctor 
tells me I mustn’t run again; I don’t know why: heart 
strain or some rot. But there are heaps of things to 
do. You never suggested the Army or anything when 
I was a kid.” 

Oliver Swift merely answered with a puff of smoke. 

That night Oliver sat up in a great padded chair 
by the window, his feet swathed in cotton-wool on a 
gout stool. He had not been to bed for two years, 


THE SMOKING SPHINX 


51 


as lying down was bad for his heart. And he put on 
his spectacles and read a letter the paper of which was 
already turning yellow. It was a long letter written 
in a neat Italian hand. He turned over the well- 
remembered sheets, drawing in his breath between his 
clenched teeth every now and again, for the pain was 
on him. He came to a passage and stopped. 

“ Don’t force him, he’s not the kind of boy to be 
forced. He’s a little like me, don’t you think, and 
must go his own way, even if he has to pay for it after- 
wards. One day he’ll run up against something that 
will hurt him and that will make a man of him. The 
Dutch doctor here gave me a frank answer. ‘If you 
are lucky you will die in a week.’ So it’s good-bye. 
I believe in the hereafter. Tim is inclined to be deli- 
cate; I think his chest is weak. Perhaps that’s only 
fussy. God bless you.” 

In the gray of dawn Oliver Swift was still by the 
window with the letter beside him. Half a dozen 
smoked pipes lay by his side on the window ledge. 
He looked eighty, but as the sun broke through the 
clouds and the birds began to chatter in the trees, he 
pulled himself back from Death, as he did every morn- 
ing by the action of a great will. And lighting another 
pipe he sat back, waiting for the day to begin. 


CHAPTER V 


ROMAN REMAINS 

“ AK ISS NUBERRY,” said Lord Almirac, “you 
* ’ * don’t know Sir Timothy Swift. You’ll grub 
next to each other.” 

They shook hands. 

“I think we have met somewhere,” said Philippina 
wickedly. 

“In another world, perhaps,” said Timothy. 

They could hear Almirac’s bored voice talking to 
some other guests. “Oh, yes. Mrs. Nuberry, you 
know Weatherby. George Weatherby. Of course 
you do. Romeo Weatherby, they call him in the 
Guards. Looks an awful ass in a busby. I’ve seen 
him. Oh, Grace, you know everybody. I say, let’s 
eat. Anybody peckish — what?” 

“You said ‘Flip,’” said Timothy in an undertone. 
But Mrs. Newberry heard him. 

“Everybody calls her Flip. It was her own name 
for herself when she was a baby.” 

“Am I everybody?” said Timothy. 

“Well, you are not anybody in particular,” said 
Philippina. 

“Then—” 

“Of course Flip to you, if you like.” 

“Getting on, ain’t they, Mrs. Nuberry? Awful 
swift, these young people. Grace, you’ve spilt.” 

52 


ROMAN REMAINS 


53 


“I always spill on a new dress, it brings me luck,” 
said Grace Ettrick. “If you find anybody run over 
in the street with a spill on their bosom, it’s me.” 

“Just as careless to get run over as to spill,” said 
Lord Almirac. 

“What a lot of babies they are, aren’t they?” said 
Mrs. Newberry to Weatherby. “I feel quite an old 
woman.” 

“Then a woman can’t look as old as she feels,” said 
Timothy. 

“Bless you,” said she, “this isn’t Nature, it’s Art. 
My natural complexion would take your appetite 
away; it has taken mine away for years.” 

All the time Timothy kept watching Philippina’s 
mother. He kept saying to himself, “This is a hard 
woman.” Then, after another look, “No. This is 
a woman painted to look hard.” Then, “They say 
he beats her when he comes home drunk.” 

Mrs. Newberry gave an impression of being very 
expensively dressed, and at the same time a suggestion 
that her diamond rings might not be real. She was a 
big, showy woman, with a fine figure spoilt by being 
over-corseted, and robbed of poise as her feet were 
pinched into small very high-heeled shoes. There 
were several women in the restaurant very like her, 
women with hard laughs, hard eyes, hard mouths. 
They gave one the impression of being not so much 
unmoral or vulgar, but of being mechanical. Grace 
Ettrick, with her obvious red hair, white face, and 
insistent mouth, was of a different order. She was one 
of those women who appear all body. One felt that 


54 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


she was lightly wrapped in a few yards of silk which 
was more for decency than for dressing. Hers was a 
conventional daring, strongly contrasted colors, vivid 
mouth, speech full of the latest fads in the artistic 
world. She was to be seen at all the advanced plays 
and picture shows, and read pessimistic foreign authors 
with avidity but with little real understanding. She 
was the kind of woman who insisted on calling a spade 
a spade when nobody wanted to talk about spades, 
least of all to know what she called them. Rumor 
had it that she intended to marry Lord Almirac. 

“So we meet again, Mr. Pierrot,” said Philippina, 
under cover of a chatter about Steinberg. 

“And I really do call you Flippy 

“Philippina is silly, don’t you think so? And we 
know each other rather well, don’t we?” 

She seemed so fresh, so dainty against the other 
women and the sentimental side of Timothy’s nature 
was warmed by the frankness of her looks, the complete 
confidence with which she claimed him as her property. 

Mrs. Newberry spoke to him. “I hear you met 
my husband at the Crescent Baths the other day,” she 
said. “I think it’s so funny the way men discuss life 
in towels.” 

“Women do in dressing-gowns,” said Weatherby. 

“Early Victorian,” said Grace Ettrick. “Absolutely 
gone out. That was only a sentimental picture in- 
vented by men who never bored themselves to talk to 
women. ‘After the Ball,’ you know the sort of picture, 
they tell me it’s still painted every year for the Academy. 
Two girls with their hair down sitting before a fire, with 


ROMAN REMAINS 


55 


a terrier gazing at a faded buttonhole. Thank God, 
we’ve killed that — I mean the people who think. Do 
you know the mad boy’s work, Felakin? It’s delicious: 
all blots, but full of soul.” 

“I say, don’t talk paintin,” said Almirac. “What’s 
the use of paintin’, that’s what I ask myself. What’s 
the use of it?” 

“How practical!” said Grace Ettrick. 

“And by the way, talkin’ of rum things,” said 
Almirac, “I’ve got an arena in my garden. Old 
Roman affair, dashed old fashioned, they tell me.” 

“An arena! How exciting!” said Philippina. “Do 
let’s look.” 

“Come on Sunday,” said Almirac. “I say every- 
body come on Sunday. I’ll have a brace of cars to 
take you down. Rather amusin’. Bones and all that 
sort of thing, don’t you know. Funny fellers, the 
Romans, so they tell me.” 

It appeared that everybody could come except Mrs. 
Newberry. Philippina drew down the corners of her 
mouth. 

“I’ll chaperone,” said Grace Ettrick. 

“We shall have to get somebody for George,” said 
Almirac. “What about Dolly Sterne?” 

“Do I know her?” asked Weatherby. 

“A heart-breaker, dear boy, an absolute top-hole 
heart-breaker. She’ll make your heart palp. Dark, 
mysterious, young, rich. She’s refused me six times, 
clever girl. 

“I don’t know what people are coming to,” said 
Mrs. Newberry. “However, it’s your age, not mine.” 


56 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I am old twenty-four,” said Almirac. “And a bit 
tarnished at that. We’ll have lunch at the house and 
then go out and watch the worthy professors diggin’. 
Is it a go?” 

It was, apparently, quite a go. 

Timothy and Philippina had very little conversation 
together, but Philippina could talk with a fork and 
flirt with a piece of toast, and in some way Timothy felt 
like a schoolboy being played with by an experienced 
woman. Whether it was love or no, it was, at least, 
a very agreeable sensation. 

Grace Ettrick broke up the party by saying she had 
to go to the Coliseum. “They are playing an act 
from ‘ Charley’s Aunt’ or something like that entirely 
in gray curtains. I must see it. Scenery is so old- 
fashioned, isn’t it? And there’s a perfectly infectious 
duck that dives. So sorry. Many thanks. Yes, a 
cab, please. Sunday, Pinch.” 

Pinch being Lord Almirac, who had been Lord 
Pinchbeck during the lifetime of the late Earl of Almirac. 

In the great dining-room of Dewdham House Lord 
Almirac was at his best. Underneath the lazy, in- 
different boy there was the fine gold of his breeding, 
but, like Timothy, he had no aim in life “bar,” as he 
called it, “bar driftin’ about.” His mother, who was 
an American, spent most of her time in a villa belonging 
to her in the South of France, his sister was an Anglican 
nun, and his younger brother was still at Eton. Almirac’s 
life was divided between racing and the theater, that 
is to say he enjoyed the excitement of betting and had 
nothing to do in the evenings. Some one once asked 


ROMAN REMAINS 


57 


what was Almirac’s walk in life, and had been told, 
“From the Stag Club to a taxi-cab.” 

After lunch the party divided into couples and strolled 
off across the garden towards the bottom of the park 
where the excavations were in progress. Weatherby 
with Mrs. Sterne, a young woman whose husband 
called himself an explorer. “I saw him shoot a tiger 
in India,” she explained frankly at lunch, “and married 
him on the spur of the moment. I never see him now 
except when he comes back from the North Pole or 
somewhere and wants dinner. He sends me notes 
pinned on to tusks and things, you know — ‘Best love, 
my twenl y-second rhino, longing to be with you, 
Dennis.’ ” 

“What a convenient husband,” said Grace Ettrick. 

“I think spurs of the moment are rather out of date,” 
said Mrs. Sterne. 

Lord Almirac led the way with Grace Ettrick. “I 
shall have to introduce you to old Fisher, keen feller, 
quite a bright boy of seventy. Revels in diggin’, so 
they tell me. Does anybody know anythin’ about 
Rome? Not the Pope business. I mean the Romulus 
and Remus end of it.” 

“It was not built in a day,” said Philippina. 

“Top hole. You tell the Professor that, he’ll love 
you.” 

Timothy and Philippina walked last. The air, the 
beautiful garden, the nearness of the charming girl 
intoxicated him. He was of that emotional tempera- 
ment that responds at once to beautiful surroundings. 
He liked to touch beautiful things, to be close to beauti- 


58 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


ful people. It was a kind of very simple sensuousness. 
And Philippina knew this perfectly well. She knew 
she was alluring in a white dress. She knew her eyes 
were effective. She wanted to play, and she hated 
being in earnest. She hoped nobody would ever make 
her feel violently. She once went to Mass in a Catholic 
church and was so moved by the incense and the music 
and the strange solemnity that she never went again. 
It frightened her. 

She was too superstitious not to repeat certain 
prayers at her bedside night and morning, but they were 
mere repetitions, so many words. If her thoughts 
strayed as she was saying them, she had to go back 
to the beginning. Yet there were fine things in her: 
courage, resource, an easy, affectionate heart, a selfish 
form of kindness, and a trace of something utterly 
pathetic as of one who crossing the bridge of Life puts 
out a timid hand in the absolute certainty that a 
stronger hand will hold it and comfort her. It was this 
quality that attracted men. They wanted to take 
care of her. 

Ever since she was fifteen she had attracted men and 
she had enjoyed her power. She had, by now, passed 
the adoring age. She had adored a priest who made her 
go to the Mass that frightened her. She had adored 
an old judge, a chauffeur, and had one serious flirtation 
with a middle-aged voluptuary, a flirtation that sud- 
denly opened her eyes wide in horror and from whose 
scorching memory she was now slowly recovering. 

In consequence this odd, emotional, rather fantastic 


ROMAN REMAINS 


59 


Timothy Swift appealed to her — nineteen and a critic! 
Nineteen, with an attitude towards life! 

Although she knew that she could easily make 
Timothy in love with her, she had, at that time, a 
kind of pique that Almirac treated her as a child, a 
thing that makes all children sensitive. She had tried 
to get a response out of him, but had nothing but a 
calm rebuke from his off-hand manner. So indignant 
was she that she hated Grace Ettrick with a bitter 
hatred and at the same time thought seriously of copy- 
ing her neglige moral attitude, and what we might 
call her deshabille of mind. 

The thoughts of youth are not always long, long 
thoughts, but are very often swift, cruel and bitter. 

So she decided between the house and the Dutch 
garden to make up to Almirac by flirting violently 
with Timothy. 

“Let’s look at the tulips,” she said. “And let’s 
not be so awfully serious.” 

“Am I serious?” he asked. 

“Deadly.” 

“I was thinking,” he answered. 

“You are awfully young,” said Philippina. 

“Twenty-five.” 

“I’m nineteen and very careless about it. I mean, 
I’m sometimes two and sometimes ninety.” 

“I know,” said Timothy. 

Then she made use of a never-failing remark. “I 
don’t think I’ve ever met anybody quite like you.” 

He flushed with pleasure. “I’m sure I’ve never 
met anybody quite like you,” he answered. 


60 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“ Isn’t it funny — Life, I mean?” said Philippina- 
“We meet in that odd way, and here we are talking 
like old friends.” 

They stood in the beautiful Dutch garden with 
its clipped yews and stone seats and brick paths. The 
regiments of tulips, yellow and red and blue and purple 
and almost black, shone in the Spring sun. Butterflies 
hovered round them, pigeons cooed in the trees. 

“It is so difficult to get to know people,” said Tim- 
othy. “I mean their insides.” 

She took his hand and held it against her heart. 
He could feel it beat through her dress. 

“That’s me,” she said laughing. “Just a bump, 
bump, bump. I’ve no brains. Just a butterfly.” 

The touch of her hand sent the blood whirling in his 
veins. He was in love, or thought he was. 

“One meets people like this,” he said, “or at lunch 
or at dinner, and one never really knows them.” 

“Some people know each other at once,” she said 
mischievously. 

The idyll was coming back. It was not early morn- 
ing now with the hushed voice of London for accom- 
paniment, but a garden lit by tulip flames and fanned 
by butterflies. 

“It’s so jolly being able to call you Flip,” he said. 
“I wonder if you’d call me Tim, heaps of people do.” 

She was perfectly calm and composed when he took 
her hand. If she thought for one moment that he was 
a nice boy and that it would be a pity to play with him, 
that thought was put away and killed without a pang. 
No thrill ran through her young body, only the com- 


ROMAN REMAINS 


61 


fortable sensation that being made love to on a sunny 
day in a beautiful garden was a delight in itself. So 
she said “Tim,” and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. 

And for the life of him he couldn’t go on. The 
scene, if scene it could be called, was over. 

“You know,” he said, awkwardly releasing her 
hand, “I’m trying to find something to do. I’m tired 
of doing nothing and I’ve heaps of money. I don’t 
know whether to travel or what to do. What would 
you advise, Flip?” 

And as she didn’t very much mind what he did, 
she said, “You see, I’m only a girl and I don’t know 
very much about these things. Shall we go on to 
the digging?” 

Such a look of relief came into his eyes that Philippina 
nearly laughed. She knew as well as he did that this 
had been a miserable pretence at love-making, one of 
those little gentle emotional episodes in which healthy 
young people always indulge. But she did not know 
that Timothy was striving to release something inside 
him that longed to get out to freedom, as if he had a 
bird caged in his heart whose throat was full of unsung 
songs. 

As they moved away he said hurriedly, “I say, Flip, 
couldn’t we meet to-morrow — Kensington Gardens by 
the Orangery? One can’t talk here, and I’ve heaps to 
tell you. In the morning, it’s jolly in the mornings. 
I’m a dull chap and no good at talking, but — ” 

“Oh, Tim, Tim,” she said, shaking her head at him, 
“you’re an expert flirt, but I’ll come.” 

But it wasn’t right. As they walked towards a 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


circular mound of grass where workmen were busy, 
he knew it wasn’t at all what should have happened. 
“Have I no heart and no feelings?” he asked himself. 
“That wasn’t the game somehow. She’s everything 
a man could want, she’s frightfully pretty, very sweet, 
and all that, but when I took her hand I wished I 
hadn’t.” 

Behold then the bearded Professor explaining things 
long dead to three couples of young, intensely alive 
people. Behold six people about to make history, 
gazing on the remains of those who had made it years 
before. They stood in the arena whose floor of hard 
chalk had been exposed and looked with scarcely credu- 
lous eyes at the little patches of sea-sand that had been 
put down centuries before to keep the gladiators from 
slipping. They fingered the broken brooches of Roman 
ladies, saw where the beasts’ den had been, where 
wooden posts had kept the people back, saw where, 
centuries before that even, men had sunk shafts to 
reach a bed of flint below the chalk, digging them pain- 
fully with the antlers of red deer, and then had fashioned 
arrow-heads and axes for their warfare and the chase. 

Each one took the wonder in his own way. It came 
to Weatherby as a clash of arms; he could almost see 
the men waiting the rush of the infuriated bear, almost 
smell the hot, acrid smell of the excited crowd sitting 
on the chalk terraces round the arena. 

Grace Ettrick held that it was “Charmingly pagan. 
Such dears, the Romans!” 

Mrs. Sterne said she never seemed to be able to get 
away from antlers and bears. 


ROMAN REMAINS 


63 


Almirac said it was a dashed rum thing to have in 
your own place. “I mean to say, fancy walkin’ about 
here for years over this and never knowin’ these cunnin’ 
old beggars had a place here. Some nasty sights, they 
tell me.” 

“We suggest that prisoners of war were done to 
death here,” said the Professor. 

“How horrible, and how exciting,” said Philippina. 

Timothy said nothing. It was in his mind that these 
Romans had done something, that the Professor in 
understanding what they had done, had done some- 
thing. As he looked at Philippina as she walked 
daintily behind the Professor, he longed to be able to 
feel “this is my woman,” to be able to cry aloud to 
everybody, “Don’t look at these dead Romans, look 
at me, I am in love!” but it was hopeless. And the 
more hopeless he felt it was, the more he became 
possessed of a grim determination to achieve this love, 
this purpose in life, which was to build his world round 
the dainty elusive fairy in the white dress, to turn his 
charming idyll into a passion that should sweep small 
things aside. 

The Professor, who had been asked to tea, encom- 
passed the party with a flow of erudite knowledge, so 
much so that the Romans appeared to take possession 
of the place, so much so that these grim warriors seemed 
to be standing listening to the tinkle of the cups, and 
to be watching solemnly the passing of hot cakes. 
George Weatherby became enthusiastic. He offered 
his help in the digging whenever he could be free. 
Grace Ettrick and Dolly Sterne discussed a new idea 


64 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


for a toga opera cloak. “I should like to have had one 
of those kind of men in love with me,” said Philippina. 
And as the Professor rose from the table, his eyes kindled 
by his excitement, his beard a mass of crumbs, and his 
great height domineering over them, it seemed for a 
moment as if Rome had conquered Britain again, and 
that her cohorts were marching victorious over the 
Almirac property. 

It left them dazed and silent after he had gone. 
Just for one instant the fervor of a genuine enthusiast 
glowed over them like the rays of the setting sun. 
Weatherby with his Pseudo-Romanticism, Grace Et- 
trick with her sham artistry, the others to whom life, 
though young, was often very boring, were bewildered 
by this sudden clash with the memories of those great 
grand dead. 

“Well, all I can say is,” said Almirac at last, “that 
it means a big whisky and soda for me. If anybody 
says whisky and soda, let ’em help themselves. Hope 
old Fisher hasn’t bored you.” 

“He’s a darling!” said Mrs. Sterne. 

And with that cheap catchword for epitaph, they 
buried the Professor with his Romans, and stuffed 
themselves with chocolates. 

When Philippina arrived home she found scribbled 
on a piece of paper in her bag, “Twelve o’clock, the 
Orangery.” 


CHAPTER VI 

I. KINDERGARTEN 

REEN and white and gold. Trees, nurses, chil- 
dren, flowers. A smell of puppies and hot earth, 
and clean washing and that scent of children which is 
a mixture of pear-drops and Heaven. And the voice 
of that old energy which makes London and refills her, 
and gives her children and flowers and young things as 
budding trees and little birds to nestle on her enormous 
bosom. 

Shouts of laughter and snatches of song, and thrushes 
going mad with joy; and colored air balloons and dogs 
taking ladies for walks and meeting other dogs and 
not liking them, or liking them so much that they tie 
perfectly strange ladies together in dog-leads as they 
waltz round and round. 

The London voice of an immense maternity of 
nurses gossiping, of young mothers and those about to 
be young mothers walking with young fathers who 
burst with pride and shyness. 

On one side in a Palace, a quiet room full of Queen 
Victoria’s dolls, with not so far away a great statue 
by Watts of Physical Energy, and between them a 
Round Pond where very small boys, with the names 
Hercules or Ajax, or any of the other people who defy 
things, round their caps, launching ships or tremendous 
argosies with tremendous gravity, to the surprise and 
admiration of the ducks. 


65 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


With very young women explaining to other very 
young women the exact food that should be given to 
the Kings and Queens of Nurseries, having not long 
since been in nurseries themselves. 

With here and there a ragged beggar picking up 
cigar stumps and cigarette ends as a dreadful example 
to the children; with nobody caring to remember that 
the beggar was once a child too, and laid in a mother’s 
arms and was considered little else but another mouth 
to fill. 

Here are girls trying to look as if they had not just 
put up their hair and lengthened their frocks, and girls 
whose pigtails are a source of delight to their young 
admirers and a kind of pump handle to their young 
brothers. And here are young gentlemen on their 
holidays with canes and straw hats and a grave air 
of being men of the world, trying to enjoy cigarettes 
and being completely bowled over by flashing eyes, and 
effecting lame introductions and having done so, 
absolutely failing in conversation, which begins in 
giggles and ends in silence. 

And here are health enthusiasts without hats, and 
simple-life students in sandals and Art green dresses, 
showing that they have no figures and looking very 
mild beside the young mothers. 

And all round about outside the Gardens are young 
and handsome policemen, especially put there by a 
kind Government to get engaged to blushing nurse- 
maids, at whom they smile as they stop all the traffic 
to allow of perambulators crossing the road. 

But the keepers of the Gardens and the gardeners 


KINDERGARTEN 


67 


are all fathers, especially put there by the chief Ranger 
of Parks and Gardens to scowl at small boys who throw 
balls on flower-beds or have a lingering desire to fall 
into the ornamental waters. 

And the whole beautiful thing has a song of its own, 
to which grim old London adds a deep boom in the bass, 
while the treble is all songs of birds and the splash 
of fountains and the hurried ecstasy of children’s 
voices. And if one could only see them, there is such 
a push of Guardian Angels that the place is scented 
by flowers from the open doors of Paradise. 

And if a pessimist walks through the Gardens by 
accident, he becomes illumined by a great and holy 
joy that nearly all these wonderful children will grow 
up ugly or ill-tempered or poor or oppressed. 

It is the sound of the River of Life, Love-fed and 
flowing through flowers. It is the music by which the 
world lives. And its majesty is so exquisite and so 
heart-searching that it dissolves the bitterest hearts 
and heals many pains. 

Outside a child’s funeral is passing: a little box 
covered with white flowers; the child itself asleep in 
the arms of God, like a flower broken off at the stalk. 
But death is only a gateway, a shadow between two 
lights, and to a child it is a little wicket between two 
fields. And to the old and weary it is a place where 
the crooked are made straight. 

II. MORCEAUX ELEGANTS 

Enter, through the posts by the Palace, a young 
man eager to taste life to the uttermost and yet fearful 


68 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


that he had not learnt his part. If Messrs. Turnbull 
and Wallet are correct, this gray suit is the very finest 
in London. A flower rides proudly in a button-hole, 
as if to say, “See, I am carried in a gateway of the 
best silk.” A black bowler hat crowns deep chestnut- 
colored hair. A walking-stick with a golden band 
flashes in the sun. The whole effect calculated to 
amaze any female. Add to this dazzling health, and 
you have a vision of Sir Timothy Swift arriving at the 
Orangery. 

To him arrives, a quarter of an hour late, one of those 
blue dresses which, for its very simplicity, no man has 
the hardihood to describe. There is a hat in which 
one feather stands upright and alone, disdaining both 
company and Nature. There are shoes whiter than 
snow. And Miss Philippina Newberry advances a 
perfectly gloved hand, and says, “What a funny, funny 
place! What do we do now?” 

This is rather disconcerting, because in the pro- 
gram we now fall violently in love, and obliterate 
the very earth and sigh louder than the traffic, and 
sit silent till the sinking sun splashes the stars up 
and the moon rides in her purple dome. 

It is made more disconcerting by the tottering 
arrival of a small child who leans heavily on Sir 
Timothy’s knee and perpetually claims him for 
her father until the arrival of a nurse, mildly pro- 
testing. 

“You see, people never come here,” said Timothy 
lamely. 


MORCEAUX ELEGANTS 69 

“So I notice,” says Philippina, looking at the 
crowd. 

“I mean nobody one knows.” 

“Your daughter, for instance,” says Philippina, 
laughing and pointing with a parasol at the departing 
baby. 

“You don’t give a chap a chance,” he says, down- 
cast. 

“Poor Tim!” says the impertinent young lady. 
“Are you in trouble?” 

He plunges wildly into a totally different subject 
’than that which he had intended. “You look very 
jolly in that dress.” 

She smooths her skirt meditatively. “It’s not a 
bad color.” 

“Blue suits you,” he says desperately. 

“Mother thinks it does.” 

“I liked your mother awfully.” 

(“Surely,” he thinks, “this isn’t in the least like it. 
Why don’t I adore her?”) 

“What an odd man you are!” says Phillippina. 
“Yet I like you. I don’t care much for men, not 
young men. I like a man who has done things. 
When are you going to do something?” 

This is exactly right. It swings the conversation 
into the right lines. 

“Would you care if I did something? I mean, do 
you think one ought to take up big game or politics, 
or — or — something? No one cares very much what I 
do. You see, I’m quite well off and I’ve got a couple 
of houses and all that, and I feel I’m getting stale.” 


70 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“You used to run, didn’t you?” 

(How heavenly of her to remember that. But of 
course she had looked him up very carefully.) 

“The doctor has put the lid on that,” he says. 
“ Over- trained once, or something. There are so few 
things a man can do. I might marry, of course.” 

Now, though Philippina knew perfectly well that 
he was, as it were, looking her over, and that this 
was exactly the kind of thing he would say, she looks 
him full in the eyes in the most innocent way and 
says, “Why don’t you?” 

When he was trying to think of an answer a man 
came up with a demand for a penny for the chairs, 
and having been given a shilling and told to keep 
the change, insists on joining in the conversation. 

“Wonderful weather for the time of year.” That 
sort of conversation. 

So Timothy and Philippina move away, and the 
question is never answered. 

He expresses a desire to call on her mother. 

“Tuesdays,” is the answer to that. 

And all the time he is longing to be able to say, 
“I have dreamed of you ever since I first saw you. 
You are my life, my world, my salvation. Your 
eyes set me on fire, your lips are like a rose of flame, 
you hair holds the secrets of the night.” And all 
that sort of thing. Only he doesn’t know the words, 
and she won’t help him. And honestly, and he is 
very honest, he can’t feel like that. 

The call of youth to youth has come to them cer- 
tainly, but not that call which makes men into Gods 


MORCEAUX ELEGANTS 


71 


and women into Goddesses and Kensington Gardens 
into Olympus. 

As a matter of fact, he is getting very hungry, 
having pretended to himself that he could eat no 
breakfast. And if the cook put it down to love, 
the butler put it down to internal indisposition, so 
there the matter ends. 

“You want a friend to help you,” says Philippina, 
relenting a little. 

“I want a woman to help me,” he says. 

“Haven’t you any sisters?” 

Now, having looked him up in Burke’s Peerage and 
all the other books, she knows perfectly well he has 
no sisters. And it wasn’t kind. 

He answers in a sepulchral voice, “No, I have 
no sisters.” 

She might have made the fatal error of saying, “I 
will be a sister to you,” but it happened at that 
moment that two young men of her acquaintance 
passed, and she hailed them and introduced them 
to Timothy, who frowned black frowns at them. 
And she put the tie of one straight and called him 
“Cuthbert.” And was more alluring to the other, 
so that when they went on their ways at last they 
walked on air. But poor Timothy bites his lips and 
says, “What a lot of people you know!” 

And she answers, “I like knowing people, don’t 
you?” 

And then, feeling the ground slipping from under 
his feet, he plunges wildly at an apologia. 

“It sounds so jolly foolish to say these sort of 


72 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


things in cold blood, but the fact is I’m a lonely 
man. Nobody cares if I live or die, or do things, or do 
nothing. I thought you might understand. You 
see, if a man is running in a race he has somewhere 
to start from, and a man with a pistol to see that he 
starts, and heaps of pals yelling, “Go in and win!” 
and there’s the tape to be touched at the other end, 
and it all seems worth while. But when you’re 
just like a pebble on the beach, and exactly the 
same as all others, it’s — well, it seems impossible 
to get a start. I wonder if you do understand? 
Girls do help fellows to buck-up and get something 
done, don’t they? You know they do. I’ll be 
truthful with you, it’ll be easier. Flip, I want to 
fall in love, and I can’t.” 

She laughs so much she has to sit down on a seat. 
“Oh, my dear, my dear,” she says, mopping laughter 
tears from her eyes. “Are you trying to fall in love 
with me?” 

“I am,” he says bluntly. 

“Aren’t I nice enough?” 

“You are everything sweet and adorable, but you 
always laugh at me. I know I’m a silly ass, but 
you might help.” 

“Do you mean by falling in love with you?” 

“I don’t know what I mean.” 

Then she sits bolt upright and says quite genuinely, 
“Tim, do you believe in people falling in love on 
purpose — I mean, by thinking it out beforehand, 
in order to keep them straight? I’m not joking, 
I’m deadly serious. I do know what you mean, 


MORCEAUX ELEGANTS 73 

only you put it so funnily. I'm frightened too of 
just drifting about and — and getting into an awful 
mess. There isn't much of the real ME I believe. 
I am vain and frivolous and extravagant, and I 
don't think I have what you call a soul. Yet I do 
know that sometimes when I have woken up in the 
night and can hear my heart beating, I get terrified 
like a child, and I wish I was better, or could want 
to be better. And I wish, like you, that I had a 
hand somewhere in the world that I knew would 
stretch out, even across the seas and earth, and 
take mine. Perhaps neither of us are made to be 
lovers. But we might try.” 

He sits down by her and looks at his boots. “Flip,” 
he says, “there’s something I wouldn’t tell anybody 
but you. I have a feeling that there is. something 
big, some kind of sacrifice, I shall have to do because 
it’s waiting for me. Underneath I’m rather a serious 
kind of chap, and I often wonder if there isn't a heap 
of good to be done in the world. But I don't know 
how to start. It wouldn't be any good suddenly 
giving a sovereign to every cabman and that sort of 
thing. Both of us, I think, are like dry tinder, and 
we are waiting for somebody to put a match to us; 
then we shall become fires.” 

“That’s what I'm frightened of,” she whispered. 
“I’ve such awfully wicked thoughts.” 

And then she looks at her bracelet with a jump, 
and says, “It's one o’clock, I must run like a hare. 
Get me a cab, dear, I've got to lunch with Pinch at 
the Ritz.^ 


74 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Pinch?” 

“Lord Almirac.” 

“How long have you called him Pinch?” 

“ Don’t be silly. Since Wednesday. He asked 
me to in the car coming home.” 

And Timothy compresses his lips into a hard line, 
and takes her solemnly to the cab, and tells the man 
to drive to the Ritz in a voice like a hired assassin. 

“You aren’t angry?” she asks. 

“Not in the least,” he says. “Good-bye.” And 
the cab drives away. 

Then he curses women, and remembers all of a 
sudden that he is supposed to be lunching with George 
Weatherby at the Tower. Cab Number Two. 

m. RHAPSODIE HUMORISTIQUE 

To a sensitive being the Tower of London is a 
breathing thing; its memory-haunted courts still ring 
with the last words of Queens and Martyrs. 

Timothy sat in George Weatherby ’s quarters, 
waiting for lunch and looking across towards that 
fatal spot where Sir Thomas More, and Queen Anne 
Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Essex, the Virgin Queen’s 
lover, and others had seen the last sun of their lives 
rise. The footsteps of doomed Dukes and saintly 
men seemed to ring on the stones; unknown trage- 
dies of the underground dungeons vibrated in the 
air, while soldiers, unconscious of the marvels round 
them, walked upright across the space before the 
windows. 

A bugle sounded, and almost directly afterwards 


RHAPSODIE HUMORISTIQUE 


75 


George Weatherby came into the room, hailed Timothy, 
excused himself for being late, and hung up his sword 
and sword-belt on a peg. Then, with great delibera- 
tion, he proceeded to make a Martini cocktail. 

The great ghosts, had they peered in, could have 
seen sole, vol-au-vent, devilled chicken and cheese 
disappear; and the meager, ordinary conversation 
would have amazed them. 

After taking a slice of cake and a glass of port, 
Timothy began on his real business. 

“Look here, George,” he said, “you understand these 
things.” 

“A woman?” 

“One can’t hit off the — well, what the dickens do 
you call it?” 

“Never the time and the place and the loved one 
altogether,” Weatherby quoted. 

“ Hit it on the head in one go.” 

“Miss Newberry.” 

“Second bull’s-eye.” 

George Weatherby lit a cigar. “Very charming 
girl, very. Is it the real thing, Tim?” 

“I’ve only met her, as you know, three times, 
and always under impossible circumstances. I mean, 
the first time was frankly grotesque, you’ll admit that. 
The second was at Almirac’s.” 

“When you stayed behind in the Dutch garden.” 

“How on earth did you know that?” said Timothy. 

“When I took Mrs. Sterne into the Dutch garden 
I found a handkerchief.” 

“But dash it, George, Mrs. Sterne is married.” 


76 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I took her there because she said she was fond of 
roses.” 

“But my dear George, they were tulips.” 

“So we discovered. Don’t be dense. A rose by 
any other name would smell as sweet. After that?” 

“I met her this morning in Kensington Gardens.” 

“My dear man,” said George, “what an impossible 
place. All brats and bathchairs! Why, it’s the 
place my men go to. The servant question means 
a lot to us. Of course you haven’t given yourself a 
chance. A real flirtation — love affair, if you like — - 
you needn’t frown — wants the most careful nursing. 
Backgrounds make a lot of difference. I know exactly 
what you are feeling — it’s the absence of that moment 
— that sudden, inspiring moment. Conservatories 
were wonderful things, a Japanese lantern, a few hot- 
house flowers, and an old-fashioned waltz have made 
many happy marriages. The river by moonlight, 
bathing, ruined castles, the things we miss in this 
unsentimental age — they were the things. Men used 
to play cat’s cradle with girls when it was too frosty 
to hunt; they used even to serenade them. That 
kind of wisdom, the wisdom of the foolish, has gone out 
with whiskers.” 

“What would you do, George, in my place?” 

Weatherby stroked his mustache, and looked 
exceedingly young and wise. “Can’t you see her 
off for abroad at a big station? That’s a tender 
moment.” 

“But she’s not going abroad.” 


RHAPSODIE HUMORISTIQUE 77 

“That seems a pity. What about the Natural 
History Museum, among the stuffed birds?” 

“ Don’t rot, George. I’m serious.” 

“So am I, perfectly. I remember a charming little 
woman I took there — birds: nests; don’t you know. 
I proposed to her by a stuffed chaffinch, not a soul 
about, never is. She wouldn’t have me, said her Art 
came first, or something; an actress, dear little woman, 
fair hair, and brown eyes like a mouse. Coralie was 
her name, I think.” 

“I’m sure I should laugh. Fancy saying, ‘This 
is the Long-Eared Owl, will you be mine? ’ ” 

“You’ve no imagination,” said Weatherby. “Owls, 
moonlight, old churches — leads up to it in the most 
natural way. Stuffed Thrush — country lanes, honey- 
suckle, sheep bells — wedding bells. By jingo, I 
must patent the idea!” 

“Now you are laughing at me!” said Timothy, 
aggrieved. “I am serious. I really am. I am 
very nearly deeply in love, and it would be the mak- 
ing of me. I want some inspiration.” 

“ Got it ! ” cried Weatherby, slapping his leg. “ Abso- 
lutely got it. Motor-car ride, break-down, evening, 
quiet wood, nightingales, what? Oh, my dear fellow, 
if you were really in love the inside of an omnibus would 
do. You are trying to magnify a flirtation begun and 
ended at daybreak into something that should last 
till the end of your life. I say, I don’t like that cough 
of yours.” 

“It’s nothing,” said Timothy. “I’ve had it for 
over two years.” 


78 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

“Well, what about a break-down? Why not try 
it?” 

“I wonder if she’d come.” 

“If I know Miss Newberry, I bet she will. Go 
ahead, my children, and don’t blame me.” 

“But how can I be certain we shall break down, 
or if we do, how can I arrange that it’s at the right 
place?” 

George Weatherby looked at him anxiously. “My 
dear boy, I shall believe you really are in love if you 
talk in that wild way. You have a car, you have 
the admirable Jakes, you can buy a map. I ex- 
pect Jakes is human, more human than you are, 
and the merest hint, coupled with the entrancing 
presence of Miss Newberry, will do the trick. You 
ask her to go for a drive with you; you ask Mrs. New- 
berry if she may — just to see Oxford, or Gray’s Church- 
yard, or a tree struck by lightning, or any old thing. 
Then off you go. You stop very long over lunch, 
you have engine trouble before tea, it gets worse after 
tea, it gets appalling just as the sun sets, Jakes says 
it will take an hour or so to put right, a lonely road, a 
little wood, the moonrise — and there you are. And 
if you are not, then call the affair off. Now I’ve got to 
go. Any further information supplied gratuitously. 
Tim, I like you, you are one of the simplest of God’s 
creatures. Stay here as long as you like, and finish the 
port; it doesn’t agree with my servant.” 

He rose, buckled on his sword and left the room. 

Timothy took another glass of port, and lit a ciga- 
rette. From the courtyard came the crisp sound of 


RHAPSODIE HUMORISTIQUE 79 

men’s feet, the shouts of orders, the sudden rumble of 
drums. 

“Was it all ridiculous?” he wondered. “Was 
it all just a silly game?” The image of Philippina 
rose before his eyes, dainty, slender, young, tempting. 
Was this the big thing in his life? A slight fit of 
coughing caused him to put down his cigarette. 

“I must get something for that cough,” he thought. 
After that he passed out between the gray walls 
fragrant with the memory of dead lovers, and so into 
the jangle of London streets. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE TOUCH OF A WAND 

M RS. NEWBERRY having given her consent, and 
Philippina a solemn promise to be ready by 
eleven, the day in the country had been arranged. 

Timothy had thought that Mrs. Newberry melted 
a little while he talked to her, had been on the verge 
of a confidence, and had then resumed her enamelled 
manner before giving her consent. 

“ Girls do what they like nowadays,” she said. “Bring 
her home in time for dinner. It is Oxford you are 
going to, isn’t it? I remember it as being a place 
where old men seemed never to have got over the death 
of Aristotle, and young men were perpetually discover- 
ing each other. Everybody goes to Germany now to 
get educated, don’t they?” 

“I was at Christchurch,” said Timothy. 

“Really. Do you still feel the effects of it? My 
husband was at New College and he still thinks it was 
the center of polite society. Why don’t you take Flip 
to the sea? I’m sure a little wild Nature would do her 
more good than old buildings. Why don’t you do 
something vulgar? I’m sure vulgarity is very stimulat- 
ing. Doesn’t the refinement of to-day enervate you? 
It enervates me. Look at this room: my husband 
bought it out of an Exhibition! ‘ As we have no taste 
ourselves,’ he said, ‘we’d better buy the best on the 
80 


THE TOUCH OF A WAND 


81 


market.’ Don’t you think it rather reeks of the 
market instead of the taste? I think perfection is so 
boring.” 

“We might go to the sea,” said Timothy, looking 
round the black and gold room for the first time. 

“Do,” she urged, “and eat shrimps out of a paper 
bag. I used to as a child; and we used to take off our 
shoes and stockings. I’m sure Flip would love to do 
that, she’s so proud of her feet. I suppose it’s no use 
my warning you, is it?” 

“About what?” said Timothy, blushing. 

“How sweet of you to blush. I used to. Warning 
you about Flip. She has no heart, she’s only very 
expensively finished. Just give her plenty of good 
food and bring her home. I like you, you’re so naive, 
and one doesn’t meet with really simple people very 
often. I’m sure you love Punch and Judy shows, and 
those kinds of things. Flip has only got as far as the 
Russian Ballet. The Russians have such a charming 
genius for impropriety; they make it seem quite artistic, 
don’t you think so? Grace Ettrick is mad about them, 
of course. She came here to dinner the other day in 
nothing but a wintry smile made of gray chiffon. She 
shocked the servants, but my husband was delighted. 
Very brave these women in our climate, aren’t they? 
Must you go?” 

He took her hand, and looked at her hard face with 
its hard smile, and as he looked he saw for an instant a 
real kindly look come into her eyes. “Poor dear Sir 
Timothy,” she said. “Don’t get hurt, it would be such 
a pity. Had your mother those blue eyes? I’ll see 


82 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


that Flip is ready in time. Good-bye. Do take care 
of that cough.” 

After that came the difficult task of Jakes, the 
chauffeur. 

“I’m going for a day in the country to-morrow.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“I am taking a lady.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

How Timothy longed for George Weatherby to help 
him out. “I want to go to some place by the sea. 
Perhaps you know of some small place: not a trippery 
place, you know — just a place with an Inn and a few 
boats.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

“I rather wanted,” said Timothy, turning his back 
on Jakes, “to break down after tea.” 

“I’ll manage that, sir,” said Jakes cheerily. 

“The lady likes — likes sunsets.” 

“I am a married man, sir.” 

“The deuce you are!” said Timothy, turning round. 

“Anywhere near a little wood, sir, or some quiet 
ruin, or something of that, sir.” 

Timothy could see no trace of a smile on the man’s 
face. He hesitated and stammered, “I’ll leave it to 
you. We call at Berkeley Square at eleven.” 

The awkwardness of the situation was saved by 
the entrance of Lord Almirac, faultlessly dressed in 
brown. Jakes withdrew at once. 

“Interruptin’ you,” said Almirac. 

“Not a bit,” said Timothy. “Have some tea, or a 
drink of sorts?” 


THE TOUCH OF A WAND 


83 


“ Whisky and a dash of soda,” said Almirac, lowering 
himself into a chair. “ Swift, I’ve done it, dear boy.” 

“Done what?” said Timothy. 

“I’m a starter. I’m one of the full-blown ones. 
The ‘all right’ flag has gone up, old chap. Grace 
Ettrick.” 

“You don’t mean to say you’re engaged?” 

“Before I knew where I was, dear boy, before I 
knew. She said, ‘You ought to marry,’ and I sup- 
pose I said, ‘Name the day,’ and the thing was over. 
Half an hour ago, old boy, in a cab. I had to tell 
somebody. I hope you are not bored, but there it is. 
Settlin’ down in me old age, what? No more little 
suppers; no more rags. I tell you, Swift, I’m funkin’ it 
horribly. It came so doosid sudden.” 

“But you are very happy. I congratulate you. If 
there is anything I can do for you ” 

“Pass over the whisky, dear boy. I’m upset, 
that’s what it is — I’m upset. I never knew I was 
in love till half an hour ago. Grand woman, so they 
tell me. I must wire to the mater and break it gently. 
What do you think? ‘Expect married shortly,’ or 
something like that?” 

It seemed like an omen to Timothy. If Cupid 
haunted cabs, then surely he would haunt some quiet 
country place. He took note of Almirac’s flushed 
face, of his carefully hidden but obvious nervous- 
ness, of the abrupt way in which he spoke to dis- 
guise his feelings. Would he be like that too? 

“Well, I am really delighted; she’s a jolly girl,” 
said Timothy. 


84 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“One in a million, dear boy, one in a million. Do 
me all the good in the world — pull me up, you know. 
Swift,” he said earnestly, “I want pullin’ up. I’ve 
drifted about long enough. You are all right, dear 
boy, sound wind, and you don’t live high. Look 
at me, twenty-four and bored — awful, isn’t it? Started 
too early racketing about. You’ll be the next.” 

“One never knows,” said Timothy. 

“Never thought I should get spliced,” said Almirac, 
rising. “I shall be all the rage for a bit, what? So 
long, old chap. Think kindly of me when I’m gone.” 

When he had gone Timothy sat down and thought 
hard. 

Your true poet is the soul’s complete journalist; 
he must watch every movement, report every phase, 
be in at the birth of every desire and the death of every 
ideal. Given these young men to study, what would he 
find? Would he find great adventures hiding under 
cloaks of flippancy to cynicism? In the great tangle of 
colored threads that weave the tapestry of a life, would 
he find the golden thread slowly but surely coloring the 
whole, so that when death came the picture would be 
one sheet of gold? Or would he see the gold tarnishing 
and dropping into decay? 

Timothy dined alone that night in a fit of terrible 
depression. Almirac had depressed him. If that 
was all love did, then why trouble so much about it? 
All the delicate, sensitive side of his nature cried against 
the commonplace expression of life as he suddenly saw 
it, a series of events principally useful in drowning 
genuine feelings. 


THE TOUCH OF A WAND 


85 


But the next morning found him full of eagerness, 
glowing with the desire to take Philippina into the 
country and there test George Weatherby’s romantic 
suggestion. 

A delicious figure in green awaited him at the house 
in Berkeley Square. Rugs were arranged, a large box 
of chocolates was carefully placed on the floor, and soon 
they were darting in and out of the traffic, through 
crowded streets, through suburbs, through miserable 
jerry-built streets, to that curious fringe where new 
roads and red-brick villas are torn out of fields like 
bleeding gashes in the quiet side of the country, and 
then, almost imperceptibly, they were passing lazy 
country villages. 

They lunched at two o’clock in a quiet country town 
where there was an Inn so old it seemed to have 
forgotten how to be an Inn. Jakes knew all about it. 
But Jakes was a man of great experience. He had been 
in a garage for three years, a garage to which couples 
came and hired motor-cars and took them out for drives 
in the quietest of country places where they were never 
likely to meet people they knew. So Jakes was a senti- 
mental guide for a radius of over sixty miles round 
London. 

The room they lunched in was a long, panelled 
room in which political dinners and local dances were 
given: a room where once coach company filled the 
place with noise or bustle, and punch was brewed, and 
huge fires burned. But now it had the air of a re- 
formed rake, and its Gods were Britannia metal teapots 
in a glass-fronted buffet; and its attendant spirit was an 


86 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


old waiter who looked as if he collected gravy splashes 
for a pastime; and its wine-list showed its empty 
cellars. 

Jakes drew his master aside. “The proprietor 
has some good claret put away, sir, if I may make so 
bold; and the chops is like chops. And — (not the 
ghost of a smile) — the engines isn’t working not the 
way I should like to see them, sir. We may have a 
bit of trouble.” 

“Thank you,” said Timothy, hurriedly. “See to 
them, Jakes.” 

“Don’t you adore this place?” said Philippina at 
lunch. “We can pretend we’re eloping and I’m some 
one else’s wife.” 

At five o’clock they ran into a little cove like a green 
cup with a little silver river running through it and the 
sea shining like gray silk beyond. 

This time Jakes reported serious engine trouble, and 
Philippina said, “What does it matter? I never want 
to see London again. Tim, I want to live here for ever. 
Is this where we have tea?” 

“At the cottage, Miss,” said Jakes. 

So they had tea at a cottage that looked as if it had 
grown there. It had a thatched roof which was over 
the eye of a window, and the blue sky was reflected 
in the window and made it look like a sailor’s eye. 
Everything smelt of tar and nets and crabs and lavender 
and wood smoke. And the tea was entirely the inven- 
tion of some hungry genius, for it had three jams and 
four kinds of cake, and cream and prawns and new 
bread. 


THE TOUCH OF A WAND 


87 


And after tea Philippina said she must paddle, so 
they went down to the sands and took off their shoes 
and stockings like children, and took hands and waded 
in up to their knees, and sang ridiculous songs. And 
she had to dry her legs on his handkerchief. And after 
that something began to sing in his heart like a kettle 
on a hob just boiling. And she called him “darling” 
half by accident and then apologized. And he said, 
“Say it again.” Then she threw his wet handkerchief 
at him and ran towards the cottage, carrying her shoes 
and stockings. And when he turned round he saw that 
three large weather-beaten men were sitting in a row 
just behind him, gazing at the sea. 

Then they started off again, but very slowly, and 
stopped about three miles away, while Jakes shook 
his head a great deal and fussed over the engine. 
And at seven o’clock they were thirty miles from 
London, just by a little wood, in the deep, dark silence 
of the country. 

“I shall have to wait here, sir,” said Jakes. Then 
he talked very learnedly about the car’s inside, and 
said that he might have to go back five or six miles for 
petrol. And it might be a couple of hours before they 
could start again. 

“I don’t care,” said Philippina. “Could you please 
wire to say I’ll be late?” 

Then Jakes took a can for the petrol, and strolled 
away up the road for about half a mile, then he climbed 
a stile, sat down under a hedge, lit a pipe and closed his 
eyes. He had done his best. 

The sky grew darker, and stars appeared like ship- 


88 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


lights in the sea of heaven. And the trees grew more 
and more mysterious. And a very young moon came 
out. 

They entered the wood, and their feet made no sound 
on the carpet of leaves and moss, and the kind darkness 
wrapped them in a magic cloak. And it was very 
still. 

Presently they found themselves by a big tree- 
stump and they sat down. 

“ Isn’t it creepy?” whispered Philippina. 

It seemed as if some magic wand had touched every- 
thing. The wood breathed love to them, branches of 
trees sustained them. He took her hand. 

“I love you,” he whispered. And it seemed the 
wood and tree took it up. “I love you.” 

“Tim, you mustn’t say that.” 

“Flip, my darling, I never knew how much I loved 
you till now.” 

Then she turned to him, and her face was lit only 
by starlight, but her eyes shone. “I’m not worth 
anything,” she said. “Tim, dear, let me be real for 
once. I’m a heartless person. I’m afraid I could 
never stick to anybody. I take and take, and I 
never give. So let’s go back to the car and forget 
this — this heavenly place. You are too much of a 
darling to — to bother about me.” 

He took her in his arms and kissed her and kissed her 
and kissed her. 

“Have you ever kissed a girl before?” she whispered. 

“Heaps,” he said, absent-mindedly. 

Then she laughed, and her laughter turned to 


THE TOUCH OF A WAND 


89 


tears, and when he tried to comfort her she said, 
“Oh, my dear, my dear, you are so funny and honest, 
and as clear as crystal. You dear delightful person. 
Only you would have said heaps. But I know none 
of them mattered, Tim. I’ve been engaged every year 
since I was just sixteen, but none of them mattered.” 

“Do I matter?” he asked. 

For answer she lifted her mouth to his and kissed and 
kissed him. 

Then he told her all about himself, and she told 
him what she wanted him to know about herself. 
She told him about the priest and the judge and one 
or two of the young men, but not about the middle-aged 
voluptuary. And she told him about her mother, and 
how her father came in mad with drink and passion 
sometimes, but not often now, and hit her mother. 
And how her mother always forgave him. And in the 
middle of it he began to cough. 

“Oughtn’t you to see a doctor about that cough?” 
she asked. “Promise me you will.” 

He promised he would. He sat with his arm round 
her and told her how he would do anything in the 
world for her, and she had only to hold up her little 
finger for it to be done. 

The kindly night made a cloak for them and they 
became as one person, sitting close together, with their 
hearts running in and out of each other’s bodies, carry- 
ing secret thoughts. 

Jakes looked at his watch and found it was half- 
past eight. He stretched himself, knocked out his 
pipe against his boot, and murmured to himself, “Well, 


90 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


if he ain’t engaged by now, it ain’t my fault.” For it 
was to this very wood he had taken Mary Jane for a 
joy ride and had become engaged to her, and that is 
why he knew it so well. 

Then, carrying the same full can of petrol, he walked 
slowly back to the car and sounded the horn. 

The blast echoed through the wood, and Tim and 
Flip started. It brought the world back to them, it 
brought its vulgarity and noise and hurry. She 
straightened her hat and pulled at her skirt and coat, 
and he lit a cigarette, so that when they came singly 
out of the wood they pretended to have all the repose 
of two people who had been picking blackberries and 
had been rather bored. But the side lamps shone on 
their faces, and Jakes knew. 

Through dark lanes between hedges they flew, as 
swiftly as the wind; through quiet villages and avenues 
of trees, through ill-lit streets and new roads like 
gashes in the country side, through suburbs, vast streets 
where open markets flared and people shouted, “Buy, 
buy, buy!”, through the heart of the City, empty except 
for cleanness; past theaters, music halls, crowds, a 
blaze of many lights, and then Berkeley Square. 

“To-morrow,” he said on the doorstep. “I won’t 
come in now.” 

She blew him a kiss from the doorway. 

And Jakes, as he drove the car towards Melbury 
Road, smiled as one who has done his duty. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A SEAT IN THE GRAND STAND 

LIVER SWIFT sat by his study window smoking. 

As the afternoon faded gently into evening he, 
too, seemed to partake of something of its mystery and 
sadness: the shadows fell over him and his room as over 
the big trees outside. The swallows, in contradiction 
to the level calm, raced round the house, screaming. 
The old man seemed saturated in the spirit of the place, 
so that he appeared scarcely alive, but was like the old 
furniture, the old paintings, the silver and china. He 
did not think: he allowed his great vitality to feed his 
body while his mind framed the past in the old gold of 
age. Balanced between his knees was a long-handled 
spud with which he had earlier dug the plaintains from 
the lawn. The task of removing them completely was 
so long, and, to him, so slow, that it seemed it would 
require and receive a thousand years of quiet work. 
In this there was no conflict, but a reserved, passionless 
game, a little like a Greek punishment. 

His several clocks struck six, and he compared 
them with an elaborate watch which told the phases 
of the moon, and the date, besides the time. This 
done, he blew his whistle, and the silence was broken by 
the footsteps of his man. 

“Has the evening newspaper come?” 

“Not yet, sir.” 


91 


92 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


At that moment an imperious knocking at the 
front door was heard, a violent ringing at the bell, 
followed by the cheerful whistling of a boy. It 
sounded like the blazing defiance of youth, intensely 
alive. 

“That will be a telegram, sir,” said the man, with- 
out moving. 

“You may bring it to me,” said Oliver Swift, “and 
at the same time bring me some whisky and water.” 

He opened the yellow envelope with a little pocket 
envelope- opener, without haste, but with slightly 
trembling fingers. He had the old-fashioned aversion 
to telegrams, and he always, even now, expected bad 
news from them. 

It read in the terse, staccato language of the day 
of machinery: “Arrive dinner to-day. — Timothy.” 

Oliver Swift handed it to his servant without a 
word, then, in his amazing attitude of patient waiting, 
he settled himself down to listen. 

He was listening to the varied sounds on the London 
Road that ran alongside his garden wall on the left. 
These sounds connected him with the vast turmoil 
of the boiling mass of the great city. Up the road he 
had been driven by coach as a boy to school in Saint 
Paul’s Churchyard. Up and down the road he had 
ridden as a young man, and driven to the various 
activities of his very active life. To the left was a 
turning to the river, where his yacht used to lie at her 
moorings: to the right lay the way to his old shoot. 
A throng of ghosts of himself filled the road. 

The several clocks struck seven, rooks cawed noisily 


93 


A SEAT IN THE GRAND STAND 

in the trees, and then a sound like the humming of a 
great bee filled the air, the sound of a motor horn, the 
sound of something ripping the air: the new Romance 
arrived. Sir Timothy’s car stopped at the gate. 

Instantly the bustle of life filled every part of the 
house but the study, which was as yet sheathed in 
its enveloping quietude. Then Timothy Swift burst 
into the room. 

“Hallo, uncle! How’s the gout? I’ll dash upstairs 
and change. I shan’t be a second.” 

“Well, my boy.” 

The door shut, the old man smiled gently, foot- 
steps ran up the stairs, a door banged, the sound 
of tinkling glasses came from the dining-room. 
The air was filled with youth. 

The next picture is of Timothy with the cellar 
key and the cellar candlestick standing over the 
bin of Chateau Margaux, carefully withdrawing a 
bottle. 


As soon as the servants had left the room and the 
decanter of port stood by Timothy’s glass, he burst 
out eagerly, “I’ve done it, uncle. I’m engaged. 
The world is a fine place. I’m living on air.” 

Oliver smiled. “And who is the fortunate lady?” 
he asked. 

It appeared she was not only the most wonderful 
being in the world, but the most beautiful, the wit- 
tiest, and of an incomparable charm. It appeared 
that he and she were made for each other in no com- 


94 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


mon mould, but of the rarest clay. That he was not 
good enough for her; that he was more than amazed 
at his daring, and that it was to his uncle, that under- 
standing man, he had come to discharge some of these 
electrical feelings. 

“Yes,” said his uncle Oliver, which answer seemed 
exactly right. 

“And I suppose, I am really quite well off/’ said 
Timothy. “I know dashed little of my affairs, you 
know — just the rough hang of it. By the way, it’s 
Philippina Newberry.” 

“Beer?” 

“Roughly, very roughly speaking, yes.” 

“And birth?” said Oliver. 

“My dear uncle, to the very finger tips. They’re 
all right, you know. Isn’t it wonderful? I’ve got a 
real object in life.” 

“What object?” said Oliver. 

“To make her happy.” 

“I suppose we may consider that an object,” said 
Oliver. 

“I’ve been engaged five weeks now,” said Timothy, 
“but only publicly for a week. And they have gone 
like a dream. She’s away for a week now, so I’ve 
run down here. She wants to live abroad for a bit 
and see things.” 

“And buy things.” 

“Rather,” said Timothy. “You remember our 
last talk? Well, here’s the result.” Then he began 
to cough. 

“You will see a doctor, of course,” said Oliver. 


A SEAT IN THE GRAND STAND 


95 


“What for?” 

“You will insure your life for a large sum,” said 
Oliver. “It is usual, and you can afford it. Besides, 
I think that seeing a doctor will do you no harm.” 

“Do you mean this rotten cough? That’s nothing.” 

“It will be better to see a doctor. There is a young 
man of the name of Curtis, who is the son of old 
Curtis here, I should like you to go to him. They tell 
me he is one of the very best doctors of to-day.” 

“I’ll go on Saturday,” said Timothy, dismissing 
the doctor from his mind. He lit a cigar. 

(Death, passing through that room on his journey, 
looked at Oliver and passed him by, as he did every 
morning; then he looked at Timothy, paused, went 
on, looked over his shoulder, and went on his way.) 

To see the uncle and nephew sitting there at their 
ease was to see one man having dropped out of the 
race watching quietly the preparations for another 
race, where a youth, quivering with emotion, toed 
the line and waited for the pistol. 

Timothy was like some glowing lantern, whose 
rose-colored light flooded every direction in which 
it was turned. In that room more full of memory 
and retrospect than looking forward, the young man 
was oddly out of place. No room is big enough for 
a young man in love: he wants to climb mountains 
and shout to the sea, and flick his fingers at the stars. 
He possesses the earth, and with one arm about the 
waist of another pathetic child, he cries to the 
Heavens: “Look at us: no one has ever been like 
us before!” 


96 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Yes,” said Timothy. “You’ll see awful pictures 
of us in the papers, and we shall get the most weird 
things sent to us: five hundred dessert knives and 
inkpots, and blotters done over with poker-work, 
pictures of sentimental animals, and all that sort 
of thing. I hate all that part of it, but there you 
are. Bless me, old Newberry talks of a Bishop to 
do the dreadful deed.” 

“I suppose,” said his uncle, “that your tastes are 
in common? You’ll expect me to ask you if you 
feel you can grow old with this young lady?” 

“We shall never grow old — at least, Flip won’t. 
She doesn’t want any children.” 

“Really!” said Oliver, with uplifted eyebrows. 
“Are they out of date, or am I?” 

“She said it was awfully rough on a girl,” he ex- 
plained. “Uncle, she’s the littlest thing, just a sort 
of school-girl size. It’s very good of you to listen, 
but you and she would get on very well together.” 

“Yes,” said Oliver. “One of the amazing things 
about engaged people is that they are each persuaded 
that every stranger will take to the other at once. 
It may or may not be true. I suppose in your case 
you have always found your friends’ wives perfect 
treasures?” 

“But Flip is different,” said Timothy, indirectly 
answering the question. 

“They all are.” 

“I know lots of men who are in love with her.” 

“Always a recommendation,” said Oliver, bowing. 
“By the way — Flip?” 


A SEAT IN THE GRAND STAND 


97 


“It’s a diminutive of Philippina,” he explained 
carefully. 

“I understand,” said his uncle. “If I were dif- 
ferently situated I would invite her here, but I know 
no chaperones, and my bachelor house is unsuited. 
You may bring me my sticks.” 

“You’d love her,” said Timothy eagerly. 

For answer his uncle blew a could of smoke. 

And on Saturday at twelve-thirty precisely Timothy 
was shown into the consulting-room of Mr. Curtis. 


CHAPTER IX 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 

“A \ 7" ELL,” said Timothy cheerfully, as he but- 

V V toned up his waistcoat. 

“Sit down,” said the doctor. He was a young 
man, tall and thin, and had the air of being carved 
out of white marble, not from any classic design but 
by reason of a certain cold hardness that surrounded 
him. His eyes were nearly as blue as Timothy’s, 
but not so human: they looked like perfect pebbles. 

“You tell me you are engaged to be married,” he 
said, fingering an ivory paper-knife. 

“Yes. Miss Newberry,” said Timothy. 

“Will she wait for two or three years?” 

“Wait!” said Timothy. “We are to be married 
in January.” 

The clock on the mantlepiece, the gift of a grate- 
ful client with bad taste, struck one. 

“You are not to marry for at least two years,” said 
the doctor. “Iam going to send you to Switzerland.” 

“I shall not go,” said Timothy, suddenly cold all 
over. And the coldness seemed to come from the 
doctor. 

“You can cure your lungs, I think, in that time 
with care. I will not go into details. You have 
a certain form of tuberculosis. It would be a criminal 
act for you to marry now. Do you understand me?” 

98 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 99 

“All I have to say ” Timothy began. 

“You have nothing to say. I propose to do my 
best to save your life for you. You will follow my 
directions implicitly. You will . . . drink this 

quickly; it’s all right.” 

The room was swimming round him, out of it there 
came a hand, something warm passed down his throat. 
The doctor’s eyes were suddenly very kind and he had 
melted into a human being. 

“Thanks. I’m all right now,” said Timothy. 

“There’s nothing to fear,” said the doctor very 
kindly, “if you do exactly what I tell you.” 

With a swift flush Timothy said nervously, “She 
doesn’t want to have any children.” 

The doctor was writing rapidly on a pad; he answered 
without looking up. “Young women say very foolish 
things.” 

“I — I can’t ask her to wait,” said Timothy. “Are 
you sure?” 

“Try another doctor.” He was cold and hard 
again. 

“It can’t be as bad as that. I only cough now and 
again.” 

Doctor Curtis turned sharply to him. “I am 
treating you as a sensible man,” he said, “as from 
one sensible being to another. It wouldn’t be the 
least use for me to sentimentalize with you, or to 
offer my sympathy, you’ll get plenty of both. I’m 
paid to speak the truth to you, and to help you if 
I can. To marry would be criminal — caddish, I 
expect you’d call it. You are an infected person. 


100 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


You could infect you wife — certainly infect your 
child. I am not talking for your benefit, but for 
the sake of the community. You were not educated 
with a sense of citizenship. Englishmen aren’t; if 
they were our task would be easier. You have been 
brought up on dead languages by dead people, and 
when you hear a plain modern fact, you shrink from it. 
I know quite well who you are, and I should like 
to know how much you are below your training weight. 
I can see the answer, or all I want of it, in your face.” 

“But,” said Timothy, struggling with emotion 
new to him, “I shall have to tell her. I can’t.” 

“Why not?” 

“She wouldn’t understand.” 

“Is she an idiot?” 

“Doctor Curtis!” said Timothy. “Aren’t you a 
little — well, unconventional?” 

“My dear Sir Timothy,” he said, “it may seem 
hard to the average man to speak the truth about 
certain subjects, especially about the subjects that 
matter. In that respect I should say that women’s 
conversation was infinitely more hygienic than men’s. 
Most diseases have got perfectly simple, recognizable 
names, and the damage they do is well known, in con- 
sequence of which they are fastidiously left out of the 
conversation. As well leave the facts of birth and death 
out of the conversation. Do you want to be cured?” 

“Of course I do,” said Timothy. “But really I 
don’t think you understand me. I don’t feel ill.” 

“If I were a really callous man,” said the doctor, 
“I should say, ‘Good morning, take this tonic, and 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 101 

see me again if you feel worse/ But I’m not a callous 
man, so I say, ‘Good morning. Court the Death 
that is on you, marry to satisfy your sexual emotions, 
give birth to diseased children, and pray to God, if 
you believe in Him as I do, that He’ll let the matter 
drop.’ As you stand I give you seven years.” 

“ Good God!” 

“Do as I say and you should — only should, mark 
you — be free of this curse in two or three. If the 
love you speak of — or at least, show — is worth a 
snap, wait. Good morning. Will you dine with 
me to-night? I should like you to.” And then, 
quite suddenly and in a voice years younger, “Buck 
up. I’m not so bad at dinner.” 

“I say — good Lord, I say, I’ve got a lot of men 
coming to lunch. What shall I do?” 

“It will do you good. You’d better dine with me, 
and I’ll tell you the things you have to do. You 
don’t realize I knew you years ago. My father was 
your uncle’s doctor.” 

It suddenly dawned on Timothy that he knew 
the doctor’s face. “Are you that little funny chap 
that I fought behind a barn?” he said. 

“I knocked you down,” said the doctor quietly. 

“So you did,” said Timothy. Then, as if he could 
at last get the truth from the man, “I say, Curtis, 
tell me the truth. You’ve been trying to scare me, 
haven’t you? It isn’t true?” 

“Try another doctor,” he answered. “You’ll get 
the same answer. My dear man, it isn’t half bad. 
You go down to the East End and listen to the cough — 


102 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


your cough. I’ll tell you what to look for to-night, 
and you can see for yourself what happens to the poor 
devils who can’t get away. I tell you, you are lucky. 
You can marry in two or three years — I hope.” 

Timothy held the arm of the chair he was sitting in 
very tight. “You hope,” he said. 

“I never give hope unless there is hope,” said the 
doctor. 

Timothy looked round the commonplace room, 
as like one consulting-room as another: a desk, papers, 
a sofa, a microscope in a case, a revolving bookcase, 
dull prints, six powerful lights. 

“I have never thought about — well, about being 
really ill.” 

“Most people shut their eyes to the certainty of 
death. Death is one of the very few facts.” 

“You get callous, I suppose?” 

“If I showed all I felt,” said the doctor, “this 
place would be a sort of swimming-bath. You must 
go now; I have work to do. Dinner at eight- thirty. 
Not a doctor’s dinner: heaps of things I tell other 
people never to eat or drink.” 

“You make mistakes,” Timothy almost pleaded. 

The doctor looked at his watch. “In your sort of 
case — not often.” 

Timothy seized at the hesitation. “I may not be so 
bad ” he began. 

“It may take four years.” He rang a bell, and 
a servant appeared in the doorway. It seemed to 
Timothy that it was like the appearance of a warder 
waiting to show him the condemned cell. 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 103 


“Lady Pellingways, sir,” said the maid. 

The doctor nodded, then gave Timothy his hand. 
“Taken properly,” he said, “you’ll have a fine life.” 

When Timothy heard the front door closed behind 
him he said in a sort of desperation, “Curse these 
chaps. I don’t believe half what they say.” Then he 
hailed a cab. 

He was in the wildest spirits at lunch, talking, 
telling stories, laughing feverishly and being so excited 
that George Weatherby began to wonder if the cock- 
tail had gone to his head. Half a dozen men were there, 
and they drank his health. 

“Your health, old chap.” 

“ Good luck.” 

His heart gave a leap — a leap of fear. He wondered 
if he ought to tell them. He decided against it, 
and drank their healths in return. There persisted 
with him all the time the idea of going to another 
doctor and getting his sentence annulled. The idea 
of serious illness seemed preposterous, if not that, then 
unfair, just as he was so happy, so settled for life. 

Try as he could he found it impossible to draw 
the conversation in the direction of his mind’s one 
thought. In a casual way he introduced the topic 
of consumption. Some of the men had friends in 
one or the other of those establishments used for 
the purpose of an outdoor life. 

“Poor devils,” one man said, “they always think 

they are going to be cured. Plucky — why ” 

he went on with a long story. 

It was all torture to Timothy, and he longed for the 


104 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


men to go. They did so at last, George Weatherby 
remaining behind. 

“George,” he said, “I’ve got it.” 

“Got what?” 

“This damn thing, the thing Arbuthnot talked about, 
the thing everybody seems to have — consumption!” 

Weatherby sat silent for a moment, fingering an 
empty wine-glass. “How do you know?” he said. 

Timothy burst out with the story of his visit to the 
doctor. “Curtis, his name is.” 

“Curtis,” said Weatherby, “I know. The best man 
in Town. So he told you. Poor chap.” 

Everybody seemed to bring an extra nail to his 
coffin, everybody said “Poor chap,” and went on with 
a full and vital life, the wonderful business of enjoyment. 

“They cure it now-a-days,” said Weatherby. 

“Two — or three, perhaps four years,” cried Timothy. 
“Don’t you understand, man? It means I can’t 
marry. It means I’ve got to go to some confounded 
place and live among confounded dying people. Don’t 
you see what that means? Flip! I’ve got to tell her. 
I can’t ask her to wait. It was all so jolly before I 
went to the doctor, and now ” 

Weatherby drummed on the table with his fingers, 
his eyes cast down. “I know a chap who says he was 
cured,” he said at last. “But he had a pretty thin 
time.” 

Timothy got up and stood looking out of the window. 
“George,” he said, “I’m damned if I’ll die of this thing. 
I’ll do everything. I’ll cut everything — but I dread 
those establishments full of coughing, weak people. 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 105 

I’m going to dine with Curtis to-night and ask him if 
there isn’t any way of getting out of this thing alone, 
quite alone. I don’t think I could bear messing about 
with — with fellows who died off and left me. I shall 
leave here and go right away — mountains, they go to, 
don’t they? Or California, or something. I’ll go to 
Flip to-morrow and tell her. She’s coming back to- 
morrow.” 

He turned round and faced his friend again. “Do 
you know, old chap, it seems an odd thing to say, but 
if it wasn’t for this lung business, I might even enjoy 
it. Does that sound caddish, when I’m just engaged? 
I suppose I’ve got a touch of my father in me. He 
messed about all over the world. I think I’m a bit 
sick of all the silly things we do here just to get through 
time. And the funny thing is that I’ve only just 
thought all this.” 

“This man I knew,” said Weatherby slowly, “went 
to some out-of-the-way place in Austria, and built 
himself a cabin and lived there for a year or two: 
right up near snow somewhere. He’s in America 
now; I saw him before he left. I shouldn’t have 
known him — a great, big, strong chap. I say, I’m 
awfully sorry, old man.” 

“Seems bad luck, doesn’t it?” 

“If there is anything I can do?” said Weatherby. 

“I’ll ask you.” 

Then Weatherby got up and shook hands with his 
friend. “Nothing ever happens to me. I don’t sup- 
pose anything ever will. I wish it was me, old chap, 
honestly I do. I’m sure you’ll get all right. Shall we 


106 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


meet to-morrow, after you’ve told her? She’ll stick 
to you. It makes it so much more romantic for her. 
Two years is no time nowadays, old chap. I must 

go” 

When Weatherby had gone Timothy wandered up 
and down the house in a purposeless way, looking at 
the pictures and furniture as if they didn’t belong to 
him, opening and shutting the piano in the drawing- 
room, lighting and throwing away cigarettes. He went 
into his dressing-room at last, locked the door and 
stripped himself. Then he examined his body carefully 
in a big mirror. Certainly he was very thin, but his 
muscles were hard, and his chest — he drew in a deep 
breath and filled his lungs. They looked all right; they 
looked — but the exertion made him feel suddenly weak. 
He remembered how he had thought of late that he had 
slacked a little in his daily exercises. Did they really 
know, these doctors? He became conscious of a 
certain lassitude of body and a great excitement of 
mind. 

He began to dress slowly, picturing to himself as he 
did so his interview with Flip. She answered him that 
she would wait till the end of the world, they embraced, 
and all ended happily. Somehow the pictured inter- 
view did not run true. Face to face with the stern side 
of life for the first time, he began to wonder about his 
feelings for this alluring, dainty girl he had asked to be 
his wife. Had it been all a thing in a delicious dream, in 
rose-colored air, a phantasmagoria, or was it the 
natural coming together of two young people? He 
fretted impatiently, feeling very small and insignificant 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 107 

beside this overpowering thing that had happened to 
him and that was greater than his desire for a wife. 

Unable to bear with himself any longer, he went 
to the telephone and called up her house, so that he 
might find out when she was to be at home on the next 
day, and when the answer came that she was then at 
home and would like to see him at once, and that she 
was alone, he felt a sudden cold fear that showed in his 
voice as he answered that he would come immediately. 
Nothing in the whole of his life had frightened him so 
much as the idea of this interview; heroics, love, even 
self-pity, vanished before the effort to place the true, 
bald situation in blunt words. 

The house had a forbidding aspect, all the blinds were 
down in the front, and the front door was being scraped 
by a painter. A board hung outside, showing that 
decorators were at work. 

Flip’s maid showed him up carpetless stairs to 
her little sitting-room at the back of the house. He 
had never been in this room of hers before, and he felt 
a delicate curiosity in being there alone. It reflected 
Flip’s innermost spirit. It was luxuriously comfortable 
and warm and pink, and it smelled of scent. There 
were two big arm-chairs, covered with rose-patterned 
chintz, and a sofa with tumbled cushions, heaps of them, 
showing that Flip had been curled up there. And 
there was Flip’s big gray cat dozing before the fire. 
In a book-case was a row of French novels, and Swin- 
burne’s poems, and the works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 
and Hichens, and a book on Palmistry. On the top of 
the book-case and on a table by the window there were a 


108 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


number of photographs in silver frames, men and women 
with dashing signatures, and a photograph of himself, 
looking very self-conscious. Every available spot held 
ornaments — china cats and wooden Swiss houses, and 
silver boxes and bronze birds. There were two big 
bowls of roses in the room, pink and deep crimson, 
looking like blood and blushes against the gray 
wall-paper. 

He heard a door open and shut, and his heart beat 
faster, and then Flip came into the room. She put up 
her face to be kissed, and as he kissed her he wondered if 
he ought to. 

“All the house is up, and there’s only me and Puff,” 
she said, hauling the cat on to the sofa beside her. 
“And Puff and me wants to be amused, so please, 
Solemn-face, tell us all the news.” 

He could not think how to begin. Better begin right 
away, he thought. 

“I’m in rather a mess,” he said. 

“Puff says she doesn’t want to hear about it,” said 
Flip. 

“I’d better tell you at once — I’m not very well.” 

Flip, who had buried her face in the cat’s fur, mur- 
mured into the fur, “Tim’s got a tummy ache.” 

“This is serious,” said Timothy, biting his lip. 
“I’ve been to the doctor to-day, and he says I’ve got to 
go away.” 

She looked up at him, smiling. “Really and truly 
ill?” she said. 

“Devilish ill.” 

She released the cat, and leaned back against the 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 109 


cushions. “ I don’t like ill people,” she said, petulantly. 
“But you’ll get well directly. What is it?” 

“Consumption.” 

There was a moment’s pause before she said, 
“People die of consumption.” 

“I’m not going to die of it,” he said. “But the 
doctor says I must go away for two or three years.” 

He was watching her face carefully. She was frown- 
ing a little. “Tim, dear!” she said with a gasp. 
“Two or three years! It’s impossible!” 

“It’s got to be done.” 

“But — but do you mean you’d die if you didn’t go 
away?” 

“So he says.” 

“Two or three years,” she said slowly. “To one 
of those horrible places, with only invalids. Tim!” 

“I can’t help it. There it is.” 

“We were going to be married,” she whispered. 

He took two or three steps up and down the room, 
and then came and stood over her. “You couldn’t 
wait?” he said. 

For some time neither of them spoke. Then she 
said, “Two years?” 

“Longer,” said Timothy. “Two or three, perhaps 
four. You couldn’t wait?” 

She did not seem to hear the note of pathos, of 
almost hungry desire in his voice. 

“Are you very, very ill?” she asked. 

“It’s very bad luck,” said Timothy, “but there 
it is. This thing downs you in no time. It hasn’t 
gone far with me, and I can cure it, but I’ve got to 


110 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


fight to do it. It’s my chance. It really is rotten 
luck, but there it is.” 

She was wearing a loose tea-gown with a rose- 
colored waist-belt that had long ends with fringes: 
one of these she picked at with her fingers, never 
looking up. 

“Two years isn’t very long,” Timothy pleaded. 
“And you being so young, and all that, you could 
have no end of a good time. You might even come 
out and see me — winter sports, and all that. It’s 
very rotten luck; but there it is. Perhaps it 
wouldn’t be so bad after all if we were a bit older 
before we married, more certain about things. I’m 
not in a funk, the doctor chap said I needn’t be. 
But I couldn’t marry now, you see that, don’t you? 
Not until I’d got over this thing. I’m going to give 
everything up to see this through. I shall probably 
go right away somewhere, the Tyrol, or somewhere, 
and live in the open — they tell me it’s the best thing 
to do. Of course, it’s hard luck on you.” 

He waited for her to answer, but she said nothing, 
and never looked at him. 

“I have never loved you so much as I do now,” 
he said. “I don’t want to give you up. If I was a 

chap who could talk, I could tell you, as it is ” 

He made a little unfinished gesture with his hands. 

“I can’t ask you to wait ” He paused, and 

then the whole soul of him went into the question, 
“Can I?” 

The answer came suddenly and unexpectedly. 
Flip burst into tears and buried her head in the 


HEALTH, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS 111 


cushions. Out of her heaving sobs he caught the 
words, “I can’t bear ill people: they frighten me.” 

And he felt utterly alone, removed from all the 
world. 

Then he went slowly out of the room and out of 
the house. 


CHAPTER X 


SOLITUDE IN A CROWD 

'TTMOTHY left the doctor’s house that night 
* with a confused idea that it was not at all bad 
to have his form of tuberculosis, that it was the finger 
of Death, that life in Swiss cures was delightful, that 
it was awful, that it was to be a hermit’s life for him 
for several years, and that he would meet hundreds of 
charming people in the same case. Curtis had spoken 
of death and decay much as a collector speaks of stamps 
or china-marks. He had given Timothy an excellent 
dinner and a good cigar, had punctuated his advice 
with humorous stories, and was, to 1 Timothy’s mind, 
like a comedian making jokes about cemeteries. 

He left the house, met a September wind, faced it 
and refused the offer of a cab. All he had thought 
permanent was utterly destroyed. He saw now, 
as if from a vast height, how unreal, how frivolous, 
had been the life he had been living. Like a rock 
in a garden of artificial flowers his uncle Oliver stood 
out as the one real man of his experience. The first 
puff of reality had destroyed Flip; doubtless Weatherby 
would drop as easily out of his life, Almirac vanish, the 
Stag Club forget. He was alone. 

As the turmoil of the London streets surged round 
him he had that feeling of insignificance that has 
112 


SOLITUDE IN A CROWD 


113 


so poignantly attacked many men. He might be 
run over, there would be an inquest, a funeral, a 
few words at the Club — “Poor Swift’s gone,” and 
that was all. 

London rose up to meet him with her hideous 
mocking grin; people crushed between her cliff-like 
streets crowded past him, the traffic tore past, buses, 
lit up inside, showed people in dull-colored clothing 
sitting as if in a furnace. He walked on in a fever heat 
of uncertainty, the elusiveness of things, the lack of 
some solid basis for his thoughts, drove him almost to 
despair. The life of dinner-parties and dress-clothes, 
of racing, of Clubs, of little snug luncheons, crumbled 
away. He was an exiled Sybarite, and no one cared. 

He thought of that crumpled rose of femininity, 
her head buried among the cushions, crying, “I can’t 
bear ill people, they frighten me.” Vague voices 
spoke to him, white faces looked at him, he was haunted 
by a sound, a sound he had never heard before, a 
perpetual dry coughing. He realized the lights of the 
two big music-halls in Leicester Square, the crush by 
Daly’s theater, as the people came out, the sudden 
quietness of Long Acre, the roar of the Strand as he 
crossed into it through Covent Garden, and almost 
before he knew where he was or how he had got there, 
he found himself standing before Saint Paul’s Cathedral, 
perspiring and out of breath. 

It seemed as if he had walked through the body of 
London and stood now by her heart. It beat 
solemnly. What did it mean, this great building, 
purple-black against the purple-black sky? The pride 


114 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


of men, or the humility of men, or the presence of 
God? Or nothing? To his dulled comprehension it 
had no meaning, he was on a level far above all that, 
that was for fearful souls, for the timid; for him it was 
so much stone since he was condemned to exile. 

He did not know himself as he walked away, he 
had become a cauldron of seething thoughts, all new 
to him, and lost himself and his personality in trying 
in vain to untangle his mind. Only one fact remained 
certain, that he was cast out from everything he knew. 
Wandering aimlessly about, he found himself in a 
wide thoroughfare full of people, with great blares of 
light like a fog round public houses and picture palaces 
and butchers’ shops, and the noise of people shouting 
that they had goods for sale, and the rattle of buses and 
carts. He joined a crowd at the corner of a side street 
where a man stood on a chair shouting to the people. 
He seemed to be inciting people to rebel against 
those who drove in motor-cars while the working 
man starved; there was a ring of candle-lit lanterns 
on the ground near his chair, and a miserable-looking 
man in mean clothes stood by the chair and was 
continually pointed at as “ Arthur Smith,” who had 
been turned away from some work in a factory. The 
candle-light showed the faces of those of the crowd 
who stood near them, dull, listless faces, most of them, 
with here and there a sharp, intellectual Jew-boy’s 
face peering out. Then the man by Timothy began 
to cough, and he moved away, shuddering. At another 
corner a man was preaching, with wild gesticulations, 
to an equally listless group, and further there was a 


SOLITUDE IN A CROWD 115 

group by the door of the Police Station, where two 
constables were dragging in a huge drunken brute who 
yelled and cursed all the time, followed by a woman 
with a black eye, who kept shouting, “ Don’t you ’urt 
my man.” 

As he passed among all these people, Timothy 
began to yearn for some one to take an interest in 
him, for some one even to resent his presence, but 
for all the people cared he might have been invisible. 
And the sense of loneliness was paralyzing. Then 
a hand was put on his shoulder, and he found himself 
looking into a pair of burning, mad eyes, and a voice 
said, “ Brother, are yer saved ?” He broke away 
hurriedly, hot with confusion, and found a passing 
cab. 

He sat up the whole of that night in his dressing- 
room, looking out of the window, waiting for day 
to come. The fever of his mind calmed gradually 
as the night died away. He began to be glad to go 
from this place where he was not wanted. He began 
to think with shame of his excited agitation. It was 
a wonderful life he was leaving, but he was not of it. 
Again and again Philippina came into his mind; she 
was part of this brilliant, artificial life, society, money, 
shallow conversation. She came back from being 
flesh and blood, desirable, warm, to the fairy of the 
early morning, as he had first seen her. He would, he 
felt, fade away to her to the Pierrot who had met 
her and loved her and left her, as Pierrots do. 

The first sounds of the early morning came through 
the open window, a mail-van, a milk-cart, the early 


116 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


chatter of sparrows. There had been a mist at night, 
and as the sun rose the trees began to drip and a leaf 
or two dropped languidly from the branches, as if they 
were tired. 

As the light grew stronger and the damp earth 
smelt sweet, so Timothy was born into a new life. 
He felt as if an immense burden had been lifted from 
him as he faced the things he must do. There was 
Philippina’s mother to see, clothes to be bought, affairs 
to be settled, and health to be restored. 

He got out of his chair and went to look at him- 
self in the glass; his hair stood on end, his chin and 
lip were covered with bristles, and his eyes had dark 
rings round them. “Well, Ugly/’ he said, “buck 
up, it’ll all come right in the wash.” Then he went 
back to his chair, reached out a hand for his pipe, and 
fell asleep. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE LAST BARRIER 

“'T'HERE are moments when you look positively 

^ handsome,” said Mrs. Newberry. 

“Think of the years between,” said Timothy. 

The servant, having placed the tea-things in position, 
withdrew. 

“I read your letter,” said Mrs. Newberry. “Shall 
I say what I think?” 

“I asked you to be kind enough to come here,” he 
answered, “for that very purpose.” 

“You are a very fortunate young man.” 

Timothy stared at her, unable to say anything. 

“That is,” she added, “if you are the kind of man I 
think you are.” 

“I am not at all the kind of man I thought I was!” 
he answered. 

She looked at his face, drawn with a pathetic stern- 
ness, and could read there the first sudden and bitter 
disillusionment of life. And she was sorry. 

“Timothy,” she said, “what do you think of us 
without our masks?” 

A swift keen look came into his eyes as he answered, 
“Do you know that I can see, then?” 

“We are ugly, aren’t we?” she said. “Ugly and 
selfish and feeble, but some of us are real.” 

117 


118 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Are you?” he said, with cold doubt in his voice. 

“I have felt as you do now,” said Mrs. Newberry. 
“ I have tasted the first bitterness. Then I deliberately 
killed myself that was and became this that you see 
now, a painted shell.” 

He felt awkward, almost shy. 

“It will do us both good to talk,” she said. “This 
is one of the moments in one’s life when talking is 
good. Talking, as a rule, is a masterly effort to 
avoid saying anything. You want to say to me that 
your engagement with Philippina has come to an 
end, and that you think your heart is very sore.” 
He put up a hand to stop her, but she continued, “I 
said before you were a very fortunate young man.” 
Then she came to him and put a hand tenderly on 
his sleeve. “Boy, boy,” she said, “if there are tears 
behind your eyes, there are tears behind mine. Flip 
is always half in love with any man who holds her 
hand; she can’t help herself. She would have been 
an awful wife for you.” 

“Such a little thing,” said Timothy. 

“Men always hold the hands of little things, if 
they are pretty. Little things like Flip cause half 
the misery of the world. She can’t help being charm- 
ing; she gets that from her father.” 

He looked at her and remembered, and she saw the 
look. 

“The only thing I have in my life is my love for 
him,” she said steadily. “The more he crushed me, 
the more I loved him. I was quite a beautiful girl, 
quite beautiful. Look at me now. I’m forty-one 


THE LAST BARRIER 


119 


when I’m washed, and I’m a hundred and forty-one 
with this paint on. He likes it. He made me do 
it. It helps to hide wounds sometimes, often to 
hide tears. If you look close, my dear boy, you will 
see a scar on my forehead just under the curl of dyed 
hair. He nearly killed me that time.” 

Timothy turned white with inward boiling rage. 

“I’m proud of that scar,” she said, “very, very 
proud of it. You can’t understand that. That is 
real love. I love it far, far better than the presents 
he gave me afterwards. He loves me in his odd 
selfish way. He has loved many, many women, but 
he always comes back to me. Do you think I have 
no pride?” 

“I can’t understand it,” said Timothy roughly. 
“It seems loathsome.” 

She smiled at him, a little wry smile of painted 
lips. “You think I ought to make scenes and go 
into jealous, passionate outbursts. I hate the other 
women, but I’d sooner die than let him know. I 
ask them to the house when they are possible, and 
I watch them tire him. I can talk better than they 
can; I can give him better things to eat, and he can 
be natural with me, but he has to act to them. Men 
are curious boys. He thinks I don’t know he has 
two sons, jolly boys.” 

“Why do you tell me this?” Timothy asked. 

“I miss those boys,” she answered. 

In a shy but understanding way he took her hand 
and gripped it for a moment. 

“You are going to do a very difficult thing,” said 


120 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


Mrs. Newberry, very carefully removing a tear before 
the looking-glass. “But it will make you.” 

“I’m not going to die,” said Timothy savagely. 

“You are going to be very lonely, nearly as lonely 
as I am. The middle of crowds and the middle of 
solitudes are very lonely places. I often wish I had 
some religion. I haven’t got that kind of nature, I 
suppose. I live in a dirty little back-water full of 
vicious women and stupid men, or at least men who 
pretend to be stupid. Most of us haven’t the manners 
of decent servants. You have the chance to get out of 
it, and how I envy you the chance!” 

“Couldn’t you get out of it?” he asked. 

“I have my job,” she said, smiling. “My hus- 
band doesn’t know it, but I keep him as straight as 
it is possible for him to go.” 

“Only a very few people seem to me to be real,” 
said Timothy, slowly. “They stick up like rocks 
somehow. There’s an uncle of mine, there’s you, 
George Weatherby pretends not to be, but he’s real, 
so’s the doctor I saw the other day.” 

“And Flip?” 

“I don’t know about her,” he answered. “I think 
it is because I haven’t got the right words. The 
other people seem — well, it sounds odd, but they 
seem to be waiting to die. Is that odd?” 

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Newberry. “It’s per- 
fectly true. I’ll tell you about Flip. She is like 
a warm atmosphere round you, but you can never 
touch her — it is because she has no soul to speak of. 
She is a kissable kitten at present. She may grow 


THE LAST BARRIER 


121 


a heart all ready to be broken one day. I think 
she will, and then she will be lovable and pathetic. 
Neither she nor you were ripe for the big adventure. 
But I think you will always remember her, and keep 
a warm corner for her in your heart.” 

“ I think you will understand me,” said Timothy, 
“when I tell you I’m in an awful funk. That’s why 
I’m going to bolt right away from everybody and 
hide among strangers. This doctor chap only gave 
me one tip outside what I was to do for my rotten 
lungs — he told me to work. What the deuce can I do?” 

“What did your father do?” she asked. “I know 
nothing about him. Were you fond of him?” 

“He was always away,” said Timothy. “Collect- 
ing plants — devilish dull.” 

“Collect plants, then,” she suggested. 

He laughed for the first time during their talk. 
“That’s an easy way out of it.” 

“I hesitate to say fretsaw, because you would 
send me awful examples of book-rests and things, 
but what do men do? You can’t read all day.” 

“I’m sorry to say,” he admitted shamefacedly, 
“that I can’t read, books at least; I only look at 
the paper. I’m not good at books, novels and that 
sort of thing.” 

“We come back to plants,” she said. “Why not 
do whatever people do with plants. It keeps you 
out of doors, and I suppose that’s got to be your 
life. Being an indoor person it horrifies me. The 
great part of an English gentleman’s education lies 
in learning to kill nice animals in a perfectly nice 


122 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


way. Go and kill things. There are things in Switzer- 
land that people kill. What are they called? The 
things housemaids use in pantries — chamois. There 
you are, arm yourself to the teeth and go and kill 
chamois. I’ll have my silver cleaned with their skins 
and feel sentimental about you when I eat.” 

“I wonder if you’ll write to me.” 

“Dear boy, you shall hear all the scandals and 
storms of my little tea-cup. And that reminds me, 
we have been so earnest that we haven’t touched the 
tea, so I’ll have cake and a whisky and soda, and so will 
you.” 

He rang the bell, and then sat down and looked at 
her as she peeled off her gloves. It seemed strange 
that this fashionably dressed woman should be so 
human and so tender. His heart went out to her. 

“I wish you were coming out!” he said. 

“Wouldn’t it be quite the smart thing to elope 
with the mother of the girl you were engaged to? 
Mountains terrify me and fields and trees bore me to 
death. I am real London, my dear boy, a real drawing- 
room ornament with a lap-dog and a fire, and expensive 
cut flowers that it would bore me to grow. I like soft 
things and expensive underlinen and silk stockings and 
novels and gossip. If I was an old maid I know I 
should live in a stuffy little house in Bayswater and 
keep a parrot and have clergymen to tea. Perhaps the 
fact that clergymen will always come to tea keeps me 
from being religious. That’s frivolous, but you know 
what I mean. Give me a stiff whisky and soda and one 
of your cigarettes. What are you going to do? One of 


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123 


those cure places people write depressing books about, 
or the Simple Life in a Ritz Hotel in Switzerland? 
Tell me, is sour milk still the rage?” 

“You are a curious woman,” he said. 

“ That’s a compliment. Really I’m so sorry for 
those people who have to go away to die that I’m 
bound to be frivolous about them, or I should cry. 
It’s the same feeling that makes me laugh at funerals. 
Tell me, where are you going?” 

“I’m going to a place in the Tyrol called Arco for 
the winter, and if I can stick it, to a place called 
Madonna di Campiglio in the spring, and at least 
in June, with an English doctor and five other unfor- 
tunate brutes. Like a lot of schoolboys, shan’t we be? 
Told to go to bed early and keep warm, and fed with a 
spoon. Isn’t it awful?” 

“And where shall we be?” she asked. “In London 
for the winter, and I have to stick it, as you say, and 
then to the Riviera in the spring, with thousands of 
unfortunate brutes all chattering like a lot of monkeys. 
Like prisoners we shall be, told how to dress, and what is 
fashionable to read, and what to eat and who to 
know. I envy you, sore heart, broken wing, illness, 
everything. At least, you will be free of the woods and 
mountains. Flip was the last barrier between you and 
a new, decent life, and she has been removed. Think 
of your life with her, from grouse to grouse, with 
a little conversation between race meetings and on 
the staircase at the Opera, always in a crowd, always 
talking to well-bred, meaningless people whose naughti- 
ness the Devil despises and whose virtues the Saints 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


124 

laugh at. All people who compromise. Compromise 
is the weapon of tired philosophers who hug half-way 
house doors; Revolt for you, my young friend. And 
you feel it in your blood. ” 

“ I wonder if I do,” he said thoughtfully. 

“A man who is a man is always a Revolutionary. 
Go and do something, even if it’s only to get well.” 

“Philippina ” he began. 

“You will love Philippina far more in ten years 
than you do now, even if you have a wife you adore 
and a pack of children. There is a fragrance about 
a man's first love that scents all his life. No other 
woman ever seems quite the same to him. She is 
an experience, the others are repetitions. Don’t 
fret about Flip, she’d be really happy if she married 
a chocolate merchant and had the run of the factory. 
At the present moment she is a mass of baby ribbons 
and sentimentality and cleverness, only the clever- 
ness is second-hand. When she has been with you 
she talks like you, when she has been with Grace 
Ettrick she copies her. I am only fair. She is a 
lovable little person, but not for you. Now I must 
go. I’ve talked far too much already.” 

A sudden impulse made Timothy bend over her and 
kiss her cheek. Tears started to her eyes for a second 
before she smiled. “My dear,” she said, “I shall 
treasure that all my life.” 

Then she finished her whisky and soda, drew down 
her veil and asked him to ring for her motor-car. 

A week later Timothy saw the Castle of Arco and 
the avenue of magnolias in the Place. 


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125 


Oliver Swift sat waiting for the daybreak holding 
Timothy’s letter in his hand. It ended: — 

“So that part is all over until I come home perfectly 
fit, even if it takes ten years. 

“Yours affectionately, 

Timothy Swift.” 


Part II 


CHAPTER XII 

I. CHANSON DE MONTAGNE 

A BOVE everything, calm and enormous, the frozen 
music of the snows. Ice-peaks glittering as the 
sun flushed them with delicate rose-colored light, 
making them look like giants who had stolen all the 
blushes of the world to wear. Huge counterpanes of 
snow still in shadow and of such a vastness that it 
seemed the world was made of snow. And a man stand- 
ing in the opening of the Breche de Roland shading his 
eyes with one hand, while the other grasped his long 
steel-tipped baton. He was listening for something. 
From his absolute stillness and the unconscious dignity 
of his pose he might have been a descendant of that 
great paladin who, with his sword Descaudal, is sup- 
posed to have cut this great cleft to make him a way as 
he passed from Spain to France. From where he stood 
he could see the Taillon behind him, and the Mont 
Perdu on his right, now glowing with the sunrise. He 
had eaten his breakfast, strapped up his sleeping bag, 
and stood now with his pack and ice-axe slung on his 
back, listening. At first he heard most clearly the 
curious noises snow itself makes, shifting noises, as if 
126 


CHANSON DE MONTAGNE 


127 


it hid something that stirred in its sleep. Then, far 
away, and far below him, there was a crisp noise of 
falling stones. The lizard sometimes caused the stones 
to shift when travelling from one feeding ground to 
another. But he was not listening to that. 

He knew that in about three hours he would reach 
his home, that as he came down the Echelle des Saradets 
he would hear the boisterous talk of many springs and 
the whispers of trees, and then come to the more inti- 
mate music of cow-bells, his own cow-bells. He knew 
he would hear the ice crack as he crossed the Glacier, 
and his ice-axe ring as he cut himself the few steps he 
would require. He would cross the Saradets Prairie, 
come to juniper bushes with their faces pressed down 
against the rock, and feel the draught down the valley 
that led to the Port d’Espagne. There would be a 
partridge or two rising under his feet, or a vulture 
sitting broodily, like a hideous professor of death, or 
perhaps, high up, a great Golden Eagle flapping his 
way, but he was thinking of none of these things. He 
was listening intently to a sound he had never heard in 
the mountains before. It was the sound of many wings. 
Was it, he thought, an aeroplane, a long way off, 
trying to fly over the pass? Then he saw below him a 
black cloud that flew towards him, a thick, dense cloud. 
He watched it come swiftly on its journey, saw that its 
edges were scattered and gray; nearer, and he saw tiny 
dots isolated, then he realized that it was an army of 
swallows. As they came nearer still and the sun caught 
them, he saw the flash of their white bellies as they 
turned and wheeled in the sky, and it came to him that 


128 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


they were like mackerel playing in the sea with the 
same silver, quick gleam. 

The rush of their wings filled the air like the rustle 
of hundreds of yards of silk. They flew low and 
swiftly as they made for the pass, and almost before 
he knew it they were all round him, flying so quickly 
that he was forced to hold his head down before the 
onslaught, while their wings fanned his face and 
brushed his shoulders and stroked his hands. 

They filled the Breche with the sound of a great 
wind, and when they had passed through he ran 
down the fifty yards of the cleft and watched them 
out of sight, till they passed over the Col du Taillon 
and out over the forests of Spain. 

It was something so romantic and wonderful, so 
impressive in the very heart of the mountains, that 
his heart beat, and he was hot with excitement. Then 
he took off his hat and waved to the vanishing cloud, 
and wished them a fair journey into Africa. 

And now the sun was high, and he was forced to 
put on black glasses against the snow-glare, and to 
keep them on until he reached the pasture above 
the valley of Pouey-Espee, where the last monks- 
hoods glowed deep blue, and the last rock pinks 
scented the air. From here he descended by a little 
path by the side of the river Gave de Tourettes, which 
watered his small fields and flowed past his own house. 

Just above his house he stopped, and taking a 
stick of chocolate from his pocket, he sat down to 
eat and look at the beauty before him. Lean, lank, 
but as strong as a horse, Sir Timothy Swift looked 


BERGERETTE 


129 


with joy on his own possessions. It was exactly four 
years since he had left London. 

II. BERGERETTE 

A shepherd-boy was playing on a pipe, only four 
notes, low notes and sweet. He sat on a rock with 
a big dog beside him, and all about in the moun- 
tainous pasture land the long, lean, mountain sheep 
browsed. Blue and sulphur-colored butterflies played 
over the last of the flowers, a few blue monkshoods, 
an odd purple pasture gentian, and thousands of 
delicate autumn crocuses, making purple patterns on 
the green. 

Timothy, having eaten his chocolate and lighted 
his pipe, stayed on to listen to the boy’s piping that 
rose and fell over the sound of running water. The 
scene was absolutely classic: the shadow of the 
mountains, the great white circle of the Cirque, the 
splash of waterfalls, and the boy with his sheep, and 
a curious smell of milk. 

As Timothy looked at it, and looked down on his 
own house, he had for a moment a dim vision of 
gray London streets, and black, hurrying crowds, 
with sodden leaves behind the railings of squares, 
and lamps alight at five, for it was September, and he 
smiled as he thought how little it mattered to him 
now. 

Just below him, in the field behind the house, a 
small girl was vigorously driving the cows to another 
pasture, and again Timothy smiled to think that 


130 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


one was called Flip, and one Augusta, Mrs. New- 
berry’s name, and another was called Grace, and 
the rest by the names of people he knew. They 
were beautiful cream-colored cows, their dignity 
slightly ruined by the fact that such a very small 
child with such a very shrill voice frightened them. 
And as they moved the bells of those who moved 
quickly jangled, and the bells of the more sedate, 
being farthest from the small child, went solemnly. 

The other sound that added to the harmony was 
the loud cry of a woman urging pack-mules loaded 
with sticks down the valley. “Arri-ah!” very long- 
drawn out, with the “ah!” jerked at the end. 

It was September, and already a few beech trees 
and poplars had caught the fire colors of autumn 
and blazed like torches among the summer green, 
or were thrown up vividly against the dark melan- 
choly of the firs. In the valley, in the fields, beside 
his own house were huge rocks, remains of some 
battle of the giants, to whose gaunt, grim sides small 
confiding plants had caressed themselves like children 
hiding in a mother’s skirts; while from every crack 
and crevice cocksure young trees and sentimental 
ferns sprang. By one side of his house was a mingled 
group of acacias, poplars and two beech trees, a small 
scrub of juniper, and several wild daphne. Men and 
women were already at work stripping the poplars all 
the way up the stem, leaving a crown of leaves at the 
top; the men in climbing-irons lopping off the branches, 
while the women gathered them together into stacks for 
winter food for the cattle. 


BERGERETTE 


131 


The most notable feature beyond the house was an 
acre of rock garden containing almost every kind 
of Alpine and Pyrennean plant or shrub. This was 
Timothy’s especial care and delight. 

The house had been a rough farm before he bought 
it, and now it retained the same character, and the 
wing he had built followed the old lines, the great 
alteration being a long veranda and the big plate- 
glass windows. An enormous boulder shielded the 
house from the northern tempests, the trees broke the 
fury of the southerly gales, and both of them in the 
winter caught and held the deep drifts of snow. The 
Gave de Tourettes formed the boundary of his domain 
on the right, the Gave de Pau tore past the bottom 
of the fields in its deep gorge, and a little wandering 
stream bounded the left. A very compact, well- 
watered kingdom. 

As he walked down the sound of the shepherd’s 
pipe grew fainter and became merged in the regular 
pat-pat of some woman washing clothes in the river. 

He had been away alone in the mountains, sleeping 
out for three nights, and he felt a longing for a bath 
and a good meal. “Uranie!” he called, as he stepped 
on to the veranda. “ A bath of hot water, and, at ten 
o’clock — dejeuner.” Then, as he turned to go into 
the house, his eyes caught sight of the village Cure, 
Monsieur le Berade, fishing in the stream. “And 
Uranie,” he called, “invite M. le Cure to dejeuner 
also.” 


CHAPTER, XIII 


OVER THE SHOULDER 

L OOKING back on those four years of exile Timo- 
thy would see a perfect stranger in the figure who 
left London and arrived in Arco at loggerheads with 
cruel Fate. Casting back to those first months, as 
he sometimes did, he wondered he had ever borne 
with them. 

Everything had bored him — the life, the doctor, 
and above all, the five other men staying in the doctor’s 
house. He would go by the little train to Riva and 
sit watching the steamers unload their cargo of tourists 
• — English mothers and daughters, Germans with weird 
luggage, Americans, Italians — and envy all of them 
passionately. He became morbid and unsociable, 
speaking as little as possible within the bounds of 
politeness, and answering the letters of his friends 
tersely and rarely. The beauty of Arco, with its 
cypress-guarded tower and its wonderful Southern 
vegetation, oppressed him. Life was flat and meaning- 
less, and he spent hours of every day on his back in 
the woods picturing the Stag Club at lunch-time, the 
theaters and music-halls of London, the pavements, 
the figure of Almirac, thin and elegant, walking up 
St. James’s Street, and there danced before his eyes the 
132 


OVER THE SHOULDER 


133 


fascinating picture of Flip in her every mood. All 
this was before the mountains claimed him. 

In despair he began to wander from mountain 
hotel to mountain hotel, a month at one place, six 
weeks at another, six months at another. He felt 
a leper, an outcast, and arranged to always eat at a 
little table alone at the various hotels, as far from other 
people as possible. And all the time the hand of 
God was on him, moulding him into a man. For one 
thing he became a great reader. The pages of Dickens, 
of Thackeray, of Meredith and Hardy opened his eyes 
to new views of the world; their characters lived for 
him far more clearly and sensibly than the people with 
whom he was thrown in contact. They educated him 
as no living person could have educated him at that 
time. He walked with the great ones of fiction 
through gorges and mountain-passes, pored over 
the majestic pages by torrents and by little gossip- 
ing streams, lay beneath pines and heard The 
Three Musketeers ride by, saw Sidney Carton go 
to execution, Don Quixote charge his windmills, fell 
in love with countless heroines, while the real world 
about him was a mist. “Who is the Englishman who 
is always reading?” people asked in hotels. “Milor 
Swift,” was the answer. When people spoke to him 
he came out of a haze and had to focus them in his 
mind before he replied. This sudden blaze of imagina- 
tion was not good for him; it came in too much of a 
rush. People faded before dreams, and he was out of 
perspective with the world. The mountains and the 
snows and the flowers as yet made no appeal to him, 


134 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


but in those two years of wandering over the Tyrol 
and the Alps he changed so quickly that when 
at the end of the second year he found himself at 
Pau, he found himself then, and only then, a new 
man — a strange being with whom he had to become 
acquainted. 

He reviewed those years in the train as he travelled 
to Pierrefitte, and smiled to think of the trail of cast- 
off clothing he had spread over Europe — socks left 
behind in the Mendel Pass, a suit at La Grave in the 
Dauphine, a coat at Lovere, a hat at Lauterbrunnen. 
Though he smiled he had the uneasy sense that wander- 
ing had taken too much hold on him, and that he 
needed a home. All thought of a return to England 
had gone from him now, for at last the mountains had 
taken their hold of him and he became their son. 

He left the train at Argeles because he liked the 
place, and sat down with a great sense of comfort 
in the hotel veranda and listened to the laziest giving 
sound in the world, the chorus o f crickets in the grass. 
Here, having no definite intention, he spent five 
weeks, sending for his luggage from the station at 
Pierrefitte. 

He read very little here; it was the beginning of 
his reading the grand open book of nature. Sun- 
traps appealed to him, the heat of the sun on his 
skin through his clothes, the glare and glitter of it, 
the purple shadows and the cool mystery of trees. He 
remembered his joy at the sight of the sun-soaked 
streets of Genoa, where out of dark, cave-like shops, 
fat figs appeared, and boughs of orange-trees glowing 


OVER THE SHOULDER 


135 


with fruit like small suns, and lemons like long 
moons, and purple grapes, and the cool green of olive 
branches. 

Memories of places began now to take the place 
of memories of people, and blotted out the proces- 
sion of the heroes and heroines of books. So he would 
often sit under the shelter of some rock and wing his 
mind back to such things as the fairy-tale towers of 
Thun, or a field scented by Alpine lilies under the 
shadow of the Meiji. 

It was early in May when he strapped a knap- 
sack on his back and started, staff in hand, for Gavarnie. 
The first part of the road, as far as St. Sauveur, by 
the little electric train, but the rest, the glorious twelve 
miles, he walked, little realizing that it would be over 
two years before he should descend that road again. 
As he ascended and the wonderful valley unfolded its 
beauty to him, he became aware of a subtle suggestion 
of peace, and of the need he had for this wild loveliness. 
As people meet people who are akin to them and feel 
at once in unspoken affectionate communication, 
so he felt with this valley — it met him half-way; it 
cried “Son of mine!” to his heart. And when the 
first view of the Cirque fell upon his eyes, his heart 
warmed to think of the exquisite grandeur. Some- 
thing dropped away from him, his restlessness, his 
feeling of exile went, and he felt like a traveller re- 
turning home. 

An understanding woman who saw him seated 
outside the hotel after a late dejeuner, thought he 
was in love because his eyes shone. 


136 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


In those first months of spring he learned to love 
the flowers. There was an odd old man staying 
in the hotel whose name was Vale, and he it was who 
told Timothy the names of them, and where to find 
them. Their acquaintance began in this way: one 
night at dinner Arnold Vale saw a vase on Timothy’s 
table and in it a few flowers he had gathered. He 
heard him ask the waiter the names of them, and 
heard the waiter obligingly pick out the crocus and 
name it triumphantly, more he could not do. After 
dinner he went up and spoke to Timothy. “I see 
you are interested in flowers,” he said. 

“Well,” Timothy replied, “I suppose I am. I 
didn’t know I was until a week or two ago, but they 
— they seem to want to be appreciated.” 

The old man looked oddly at him through his 
large, round, horn-rimmed glasses. “They are more 
trustworthy than people,” he said. Then, to Timothy’s 
astonishment, he went away. Next morning he found 
with his coffee and roll a small book full of colored 
plates placed by his cup. It was Schroster’s Alpen- 
Flora, and on the fly-leaf was written, “With the compli- 
ments of Arnold Vale.” He did not see Vale until the 
evening, and when he came down to dinner he went up 
to the old man and thanked him. 

“I chanced to have a copy,” said Vale. 

The next day they went for an expedition together. 
Then Vale lifted the corner of a curtain of Nature, 
and showed him how the Polytrichum’s soft dark 
moss first appears under the snow, and how the meadow 
cresses come, and the cudweed and the dwarf willow. 


OVER THE SHOULDER 


137 


There, under the shadows of the mountains, the white 
crocus starred the meadow, pricking through the snow, 
and the childlike Soldanella, with its purple bell cones, 
and the soft-haired Spring anemone, like a flowering 
mouse, and then the Alpine Ox-eye, and the speedwell 
with its bunch of blue eyes, and then, as the cloak of 
snow was drawn away, the ground was jewelled with 
the vivid blue of gentian, the yellow, delicate, scented 
violet; and later on the Primulas, prim as their names, 
would gather in wet places, where they look like pink- 
faced schoolgirls crossing a bog. 

It was the opening of a new book to a man who 
was in exactly that state of mind when new ideas 
take root and flourish. Arnold Vale became a memory 
to Timothy of a man like the rugged rocks in the fields 
about whose sides little flowers clung that bloomed 
gladly and gaily every year. 

As the Spring merged delicately into early summer, 
patches of green leaves revealing their flower secrets, 
trees unfolding their buds, the snow gently retreat- 
ing, so Timothy became the lover and son of the 
valley and the mountains, and finding that there 
was a small farm to be sold, he bought it, and by 
autumn was installed. He became a member of 
the little village community, and might have been 
seen during the building operations leaning on a bank 
with Henri Gozast, the guide, Victor Pic, the plant 
collector, M. Coumely, the proprietor of the big 
Hotel, discussing village politics, or listening to 
stories of the mountains. The village lights took the 
place of London lamps, the trees spoke to him, the 


138 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

flowers nodded to him, a deep peace entered into his 
heart. 

That part of him that had been fed by vast quantities 
of people, the press of engagements, the crowded social 
life of a young, wealthy man in London, seemed to 
have utterly died. That part of him that books had 
illuminated with their visionary heroes so that he moved 
in a world of inspired words, seemed to have died also. 
The running water, the wind, and the eloquent silence 
of snow-fields, filled the places of both books and people. 
That of his father that was in him gave him a taste 
for silence, so that he held communion with Nature 
and was satisfied. The need for himself of other 
sympathies was filled by the simple, primitive people 
who were so courteous, and he began to live again 
in their troubles, their histories, and their simplicity. 
A man in his life dies many deaths and knows as 
many resurrections; Nature with her yearly death 
and her rebirth, most wonderful, in spring, taught 
him that. The habit of the man changed: what 
was fantastic in him showed in the names of his cows, 
in his peopling the glens and rocks with imaginary 
inhabitants, in his taking grave-eyed children to look 
for elves playing in the rocks and woods. It seemed 
that life must go on for ever in this leisurely fashion, 
one day very like another in its doings, quite different 
in its pictures. Flip, Mrs. Newberry, Almirac, Weath- 
erby, were dreams who wrote letters of a life that was 
almost a dream. He had no idea that this was only 
to be a rest-house on the way to a life of strenuous 


OVER THE SHOULDER 


139 


effort, that the pendulum would swing back and plunge 
him into the vortex of things once again. 

Then, as men grow to one another, he grew to 
the village Cure, M. le Berade, and from him learned 
the beginning of the great secret of life. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE 

THE house of M. le Berade is a truly amazing 
^ place: its enemy the weather and its painter 
the sun have battered and beaten the old thing into 
the semblance of a gray rock. The sun has taken the 
shutters and doors in hand and has mellowed the once 
bright green paint into a thing of wonder. The out- 
side has stood all this bravely, but Time and a purse 
with a hole in it have done their best to wreck the 
interior. The banisters are held together with string, 
a broken door leads from the dining-room into the 
stable where he keeps his two mules and his antedilu- 
vian cart. The bedroom, with its wooden bed, its bare 
floor and walnut hanging cupboard, is as clean as a 
woman of seventy-five, Marie, his servant, can keep 
it, and she is nearly blind. Pere Berade, as the people 
call him, is the most weather-beaten person in all the 
village. He is incredibly dirty, his nails are long and 
black, except on Sundays, and his hair, which he 
wears long, is a dingy white. He wears shoes with 
great hob-nails in them that make him sound like 
an army as he comes into the church and have a 
grotesque effect under his vestments; everything he 
wears is many times patched, and he is never to be 
seen but with an umbrella left behind by Noah in 
140 


THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE 


141 


the Ark. Out of a brown face covered with a mesh 
of wrinkles two brilliant blue eyes look gently upon 
the erring world. Into such a casket God has put 
the pure, clean soul of a child, the faith of a martyr, 
and the tenderness of a woman. After his daily Mass 
he goes home to break his fast on a piece of hard bread 
and a bowl of limeflower tea; in the middle of the day, 
at noon, he takes eggs as a rule, with perhaps some 
broth and vegetables, and for certain three glasses of a 
sticky, sweet, Spanish red wine. His nose is built for 
the quantities of snuff, he absorbs, and his sneeze can 
be heard from one end of the village to the other. 
Year after year he has heard the sins of his people and 
has given them the blessing of absolution. He has 
heard of every kind of crime and evil, gross, dreadful 
sins committed by his children, and day after day he 
thanks God that the world is so beautiful and people 
so good. 

Timothy met him first over a question of fishing. 
He landed a two-and-a-half-pound trout the Cure had 
hooked that was in grave danger of escape. 

“And there,” said the Cure, looking at the fish on 
the bank, “there would my dinner have gone but for 
you, Monsieur.” 

At that the trout, with one enormous effort, leapt 
from the rock and into the stream again. 

“You see,” said the Cure, smiling ruefully, “it is 
ordained I am not to eat him.” 

“If you will have dejeuner with me?” said Timothy. 

“You see,” said the Cure, bowing, “it is also or- 
dained that I shall eat well to-day.” 


142 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


It was the first time, as far as Timothy could re- 
member, that his meal had been blessed by a Grace 
that seemed genuine. 

The dining-room was white, and the deep easy chairs 
were the delight of the Cure. He sat in one after the 
simple meal and got up in order to have the pleasure of 
sitting down again. 

“I am again in your White’s Club,” he said. 

“ You have been to White’s?” said Timothy. 

“Ah,” said the Cure, taking a huge pinch of snuff, 
“you don’t think this old parish priest has ever moved 
from this so small a place. He is like these good 
children here, born under the shadow of the mountains.” 
The room echoed with a gigantic sneeze. “I was born 
in Paris, M. Swift, and I went to London once with the 
late Due D ’Albany, a dear fellow. I spik English very 
good, n’est-ce pas?” 

He had an appearance not unlike Lizt, with his 
venerable white locks, and looked in his dingy black 
against the sunlit wall like some figure out of a Greuze 
picture, while his brilliant bandanna handkerchief 
made a sudden splash of color. In manner he had a 
soft voice with protective tones, as of one who is in the 
habit of speaking to children, and the way of using his 
hands most priests have, with the thumb and first 
finger touching. 

Timothy asked him what were his impressions of 
London, and as he did so the wonderful voice of that 
city sounded in his ears again. 

“I think always,” said the Cure, leaning forward, 
“of thousands of black ants running between cliffs. 


THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE 


143 


all aimless, all as if in terror, and I think I see that 
they go in patterns, in ordered ways. As one grows 
old, Monsieur, one sees always more clearly the great 
wonder of order in the world. The great mass of people 
are turning their faces in one direction, to God. Some 
turn their faces away, but they peer round again, and 
some hide their faces, for the light is very strong.” 

“But surely,” said Timothy, “you of all men see 
the wickedness of people. I’m not any good at talking 
of this kind of thing, but I am just beginning to think. 
For instance, I am not of much use in this world. I do 
nothing but look after myself.” 

The Cure touched a bowl of gentians, the last of 
the season, with a long dirty finger. “Who shall say, 
Monsieur, that you are of no use, when you have cared 
for a corner of God’s mantle?” 

“Anybody can pick flowers, M. le Berade.” 

“It is a step,” the Cure answered. “You will find 
this beauty in people. I spend my days picking the 
flowers of people’s souls. You see, Monsieur, wicked- 
ness is so easy to understand, goodness is so simple, 
that one often passes it by as one passes by these 
little flowers. Goodness is so childlike that one who is 
grown up sometimes loses touch with it. If you look 
into the eyes of children you will see what clear wells 
of innocence they are. Do you not see that sometimes 
in the eyes of men? We have in our Church a mystery 
that is called conversation with the Saints. It is like 
walking in a garden with very simple, dignified people 
who understand you before you speak. It is an ele- 
vation of the mind and an exceeding lightness of the 


144 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


body. I think, Monsieur, that people who pick wild- 
flowers have arrived very nearly at the wall of that 
garden, but they do not know that there is a gate 
through which they may pass.” 

“ There are voices in the solitudes,” said Timothy, 
speaking quite from his innermost heart, “but they are 
not always good voices.” 

“Do you think I do not hear them?” said the 
Cure. 

Timothy turned red, amazed to find to what depths 
the conversation had gone; somehow he found he could 
talk to this man. 

“Those things,” said the Cure, “that disturb the 
surface need not trouble the deeps. But one must be 
careful of storms. Tell me, Monsieur, if you care to, 
why you are here alone.” 

Timothy told him; he told him also of Philippina. 
But for the life of him he could not explain why he chose 
to remain there in the mountains and make a home 
among them. He was in that stage of transition when 
food and sleep were not enough for him, when he began 
to ask himself intimate questions about himself, when, 
since he knew no God, he conjured up nymphs of 
streams and fairies of rocks, and the spirits of trees 
to minister to a need to which he could give no 
name. 

He wanted a friend, and in Nature he had found one 
who never changed. 

This was the first of many talks with the old Cure, 
to whom he took a great liking. As a rule the old 
man was full of humor, the simple humor of the people 


THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE 


145 


of the valley. Sometimes Timothy would sit on a rock 
near the church, smoking his pipe, and would hear 
through the open door, where three blind men always 
sat, the congregation titter at some remark in the 
Cure’s sermon. He would hear the rustle of people 
as they moved to kneel and the scrape of their chairs as 
they moved to sit. The smell of incense floated out of 
the door, the summons of the Sanctus bell rang out 
clearly; men’s rough voices answered the peculiar nasal 
singing of the women and children. Sometimes he 
would sit where he could see into the church, and watch 
the wind flicker the altar candles like flowers burning 
in the gloom. For a space during the Mass and Bene- 
diction the mountains would enfold this little group of 
faithful souls all silent but for the hurried muttering of 
the priest. Once, when a bird flew into the church, 
he could hear the children’s excited whispers. Once 
old Jean Paul Chapelle had a fit and was carried down 
from the gallery by two men. And when Benediction 
was over, by half-past ten as a rule, after the solemn 
hush of the blessing, there would come a clatter fit to 
rouse the dead who slept outside, and the people would 
pour out, laughing and chattering, the women in their 
red and black hoods and the men in black with their 
blue caps, and the children with their Guild badges. 
Then men and women would go to say a few prayers 
at the graves of their dead, and lastly, the hobnails of 
the Cure’s shoes sounded alone, and Timothy would 
look in to see him snuffing candles. Then, framed 
in the dark doorway, the Cure would bow a saluta- 
tion to him. 


146 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


The soft, damp mists of November veiled the face 
of Autumn, the paths in the woods were quiet with 
sodden leaves, the last trees blazed orange and gold, 
clouds hung over the mountains, the crocuses died, 
the fields were sprayed over with manure, and the 
cattle were gathered near to the farms, a smell of the 
burning of wood-fires made the air aromatic, fresh 
snow fell on the mountains, and the days grew short. 

Often as Timothy sat smoking in the evening his 
smoke would conjure up a vision of Flip seated in the 
chair opposite to him. He would be drowsy from the 
exercise of cutting wood, or the milking of his cows, 
which he had learned to do himself. Uranie’s good 
cooking comforted him, and in a lazy way he would 
pretend Flip was indeed there and talk to her. Or he 
would sit down and begin a flippant letter to Mrs. 
Newberry, when he would remember her namesake, 
now peacefully asleep in the cattle-shed, laugh, put 
down his pen, yawn, and go to bed, leaving the letter 
unfinished. 

And one morning there was an unaccustomed 
glare of light in his bedroom, and when he looked 
out of the window he saw the first thin coverlet of 
snow over everything. 

It was towards the end of November, and about 
five o’clock in the morning, when he heard a voice 
calling under his window. He jumped out of bed 
and saw a man standing there in the dim light. 

“ Who is it?” he called. 

“ Henri.” 

“What has happened?” 


THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE 


147 


“A child is dying down in the valley. I am going 
with Pere Berade; he asks me to ask if you will come 
also.” 

“Me?” 

“Yes, Monsieur. He said, ‘Tell M. Swift one of 
my flowers is dying.’ That was all.” 

“I shall be ready in five minutes.” 

“Meet us on the bridge.” 

As he hurried into his clothes Timothy wondered 
why the Cure should have sent for him when so many 
of the men were used to accompany him. Then 
he thought of the talk he had had with the Cure 
of the beauty of a good death, and supposed that he 
wished him to see such a thing. Although it struck 
him as a morbid idea he knew there was no morbidity 
in the old priest, and as he stumbled along the stony 
path in the darkness, he felt a keen excitement at the 
novel experience. 

On the bridge stood Henri Gazost, the guide, with 
a lantern, and a tall thin man was walking up and 
down. 

“It is the father,” whispered Henri, “Pierre 
Boule.” 

They waited for the Cure, while the lantern flashed 
strange paths of orange light on the road. The 
river dashed roaring beneath them, but above that 
Timothy could hear the prayers of Pierre Boule as he 
paced backward and forward in and out of the lantern 
light, which shone as he passed on the rosary in his 
hand. 

The Cure, wrapped in a big black cloak, appeared, 


148 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

and Pierre and Henri both knelt; following them, 
Timothy knelt also, though he did not know that they 
knelt because the Cure had the Host in a case on his 
breast under the cloak and that his right hand covered. 
In his left he had a steel-tipped baton, for the house 
they were going to was high up above the left bank of 
the river. 

Not a word was spoken as they moved down 
the road. Henri walked in front, and the light 
of his lantern played on the snow as it swayed. 
Behind him walked the Cure, the father next, and 
lastly Timothy. The saying of the rosary went on 
interminably. 

They went down until they came to a sharp turning 
on the left, stumbled over some rough ground, crossed 
a bridge, and began to mount a steep track by some 
farms on the other side. A dog barked furiously, and 
his barking followed them as they climbed. They were 
forced to go very slowly on account of the old man, 
but in half an hour they saw three swaying specks of 
light in front of them and heard voices. Pierre Boule 
ran ahead. Timothy heard, “ Thank God, he has ar- 
rived in time.” And then he found himself blinking in 
a circle of lantern-light, surrounded by a group of men 
and women, five in all, who knelt in the snow. 

Without a word the Cure went into the house, and 
Henri beckoned Timothy to follow. Of what fol- 
lowed he had but a vague idea. It seemed to him, 
when he tried to reconstruct the picture afterward, 
that he must have knelt and prayed, not remembering 
what he said, with closed eyes. There was a bed and 


THE FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE 


149 


kneeling black figures, and the sound of a woman 
softly crying. There were candles flickering and 
guttering in a draught. There were the low tones of 
the priest, and then a silence. In that silence he had 
lopked up and had seen the face of the girl on the bed 
for the first time. Her big black eyes were like fires 
in her thin white face, which was lit by the orange 
glow of a candle by the bed. She seemed to be watch- 
ing somebody very earnestly. There was no fear on 
her face, only an uplifted look of wonderful purity. 
Then her lips parted, and she smiled, and out of her 
young, smiling mouth came tremblingly, “ Jesu, Marie !” 
The awful sound of a man sobbing, the low tones of 
the priest again, and again the words from the child, 
“Jesu, Marie !” And then the gray light of dawn, 
making the candle-light pale, came into the room. 

Timothy rose very quickly from his knees and 
went out of the door into the open air. A star still 
burned in the sky, and the mists lay half-way down the 
mountains. 

He had seen Death. Suddenly there filled the air 
with a triumphant, joyous sound, “jesu, Marie!” 

A chill wind stirred in the valley, a wind that might 
have been made by the passage of Death. 

Why had the Cure brought him there? Was his 
feeling of emotion the feeling of pathos, or of a sense 
of triumph? He had been stirred to the depths of 
his being, stirred into feeling a sense of brotherhood 
with the man who had lost his child. He stood won- 
dering to himself and this new feeling that moved 
him so strangely, when a woman with tears running 


150 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


down her face came out of the house with a glass of 
red wine in her hand. “If you please, Monsieur,” 
she said, and as he took it, “And thank you.” 

It was this little last touch of the inherent hospitality 
of these people that moved him beyond words. He 
drank the wine feeling it was sacred. 

They walked back in silence, and when they came 
to the bridge Timothy could see how old and worn-out 
the Cure was, how white and frail in the morning 
light. 

When he arrived at his house with Henri, whom he 
had asked to breakfast with him, he realized what the 
old priest had done: he had opened his heart, which 
had been lonely, to a sense of the loneliness of other 
people, and had eased a wound. 

“Henri,” he said, “that was very wonderful.” 

“Poor little one,” said Henri Gazost, “but, mon 
Dieu , I am hungry.” 


CHAPTER XV 


A PARCEL OF BOOKS 


NDER the influence of the mountains and the 



^ atmosphere of these friends Timothy lived 
until four years later we see him stride down from 
the Breche de Roland, in mid-September and order 
an early lunch. He was now twenty-nine, and looked 
older by reason, partly, of his keen eyes and set lips 
and easy poise of a mountaineer and hunter. 

You may picture him on a winter evening dressed 
in a suit of dark blue, seated by the big table in the 
middle of his study, sorting and cataloguing his Alpine 
plants. Outside the world is all white, with dark 
masses of pine trees, moonlit and mysterious, against 
the mountain sides. A heaven brilliant with stars and 
flooded by the pale grandeur of the moon guarded the 
clear-cut outlines of the Cirque. In the vast picture of 
purple-blue and white the orange gleam of Timothy’s 
lamp glowed with a friendly home spirit on the snow. 
Intense, amazing silence shut them in, the only sound 
being the crackling of his fire of wood and the occasional 
scrape of his cuff as he reached across the table for 


151 


152 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

a gummed slip on which to write the name of some 
plant. 

When he had finished all he cared to do on that 
evening he put his books, papers and plants away, 
took himself to an easy chair, lit his pipe, and drew a 
letter from his pocket. It was from Mrs. Newberry. 

As a complete picture one would see the vast- 
ness of the mountains, their cloak of frost, the huge 
spangled tent of sky, the small white house, gleaming 
in the moonlight, then the cosy, lamplit room, looking 
as if it were the only habitation in the world, Timothy 
at his ease, looking as if he were the world’s only in- 
habitant, and the firelit pieces of paper in his hand, 
the smallest thing in the picture and yet the largest, 
for they were London. 

“My Dear Friend, — 

“I am sending you winter food for thought — a 
present from a cynic to a sentimentalist — flowers 
out of the garden of passion — the torment of men’s 
minds grown into exquisite words — volumes of poetry. 
I wonder if you are ready for poetry. The time comes 
differently to every person, though the need is always 
there. Did they stuff Longfellow into you at school? 
They generally do. I adored Tennyson as a schoolgirl, 
and marked all the intense lines and tried to sob myself 
to sleep, feeling I was misunderstood — but I was so 
healthy that I never could sob, because I used to go to 
sleep at once. 

“I wonder if you will understand Francis Thomp- 


A PARCEL OF BOOKS 153 

son, who writes with his fingers twined in angels’ 
hair. And the book of oddly beautiful Japanese 
verses — 


“The spring has gone, the summer’s come, 

And I can just descry 
The peak of Ama-ne-kaju, 

Where angels of the sky 
Spread their white robes to dry.” 

“It is all wonder to me, all of it — poetry I mean — 
and I imagine it will be to you, up in your moun- 
tains. It may take the place of women; I don’t 
know. 

“Do you ever want to have a grand passion, or have 
you clothed yourself in the spirit of the snows. Some 
men, I think, are only born to love once, and sometimes 
they never meet the right woman except in dreams. If 
they meet her in reality, everything is swept aside, all 
the conventional hedges Society makes to keep us in. 

“Your friend Lord Almirac and his wife, Grace 
Ettrick, you remember — dined here the other night. 
Flip flirts with Almirac (Does that hurt or are you 
healed?), but I fancy he’s in love with some other 
woman. Grace is just the same, a mirror without a 
soul, but a perfect reflection of all that’s fashionable. 
She’s very Cubist now and has men in flannel shirts 
to dinner, men with several wives and no manners, 
and she dresses in alarming colors and is beautifully 
made up to look dead. I believe she would even 
wear false teeth if it would help her to be unnatural. 
This isn’t vindictive: I like her; but I’m sorry for 


154 CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

Almirac. Of course, he has a genius for being bored, 
but there is something behind his perfectly fashion- 
able face that makes me know he’s been hurt. 

“I think London would amuse you for half an hour. 
We have all changed our shape quite suddenly. You 
know we used to be straight up and down in sheaths 
like lilies of the valley without their beauty — well, 
now we have swollen our sides with panniers. Flip 
looks a perfect darling, like a very good shop-window 
figure come to life. We also Tango — I don’t know if 
you read the papers — Tango is not a pickle, as you 
might imagine: it is a dance brought all the way from 
the Argentine in order to stir the young in their per- 
petual sleep. Wonderful people, aren’t we, and with 
what a sense of humor! It wasn’t any success until 
some one said it was improper, but now quite nice 
clergymen do it for bazaars. 

“You have altered, that I can read in your letters. 
You have changed into a man with some kind of mental 
reservation. What is it? Love? I think not, since 
your reservation is not guarded, but quite natural. It 
may be the mountains. 

“Dear friend, I wonder if you know what a gift 
I am sending you. I sit and look at the covers of 
the books and wonder they don’t burst out into flower 
or flame. There’s Browning, so full of dreams and 
precious things the words choke him so that sometimes 
he seems to strangle thoughts; and there’s the silver 
voice of Christina Rossetti, all her fine fire burning 
white; and Swinburne thundering like the sea he loved 
so well, his purple garment torn by roses and mad 


A PARCEL OF BOOKS 


155 


passions and soiled by stain of rue and misery: he 
reels with the wine of the Gods in his head and flies 
with Mercury’s sandals. And there is a volume of 
Wordsworth, who saw so simply and is, like a child, 
sometimes rather silly, and, like a child, wonderful, 
knowing God. Lots and lots I haven’t sent you; they 
are for other things — Herrick’s for hock carts and dain- 
tiness, and Milton like an organ in a great cathedral. 
If I read you right you will ask for more. But Keats 
I send, and breathe my love into his pages, purity of 
words, words like slim Greek girls, or willows, or the 
flight of swallows. And a little book of Shelley, with 
his tongue of fire and his spirit soaring with the lark. 
And one more — will you like the great sweating brute 
who loves his body so? Write to me about Walt 
Whitman. He seems to me to have come into this 
world of classic imitations and mock medievalism and 
opened a window and spat. Coarse but true. 

“They are going, all my fine spirits, my flock of 
poets, to you in your snows — will you catch fire, 
I wonder. You see I am always wondering about 
you; you are fastened into my mind with a sprig 
of memory very tenderly. Are you saying ‘ Stupid, 
sentimental old woman?’ If you are, I don’t mind. 
But I’m not old, only tired, and that is age, perhaps. 
I’m old enough now to be fond of boys and girls, and 
that is a sign and a sigh. I regret nothing — nothing 
except that I never saw the beauty of youth when I had 
it; everybody regrets that. You must grow up to 
appreciate yourself, the self you left behind, the self 
who was light-footed and light-hearted and was never 


156 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


sick or sorry. Yet if the draught of life was handed one 
again, the self-same wine, incident for incident, would 
one drink it? I hated my father bitterly until the day 
he died; he was a hard, unjust man, but I see his view 
of things now, and could meet him half-way. You 
understand, I have no courage; if I had I should not 
sit day after day and sneer at beautiful things just 
to be fashionable. No, I won’t say that, it isn’t 
quite fair to myself. You wouldn’t give an elephant 
a daisy to play with, would you? My few things, 
the things my soul loves, are not for vulgar display, 
or to be trampled on by coarse people. I often think 
how terrible youth is, with its fine clay modelled by 
chance hands — people, parents, I mean, don’t count 
influences, and if they do, they can’t do anything. 
Think of Flip, where did she get her commercial little 
soul, and her not very pretty mind? Don’t be angry. 
I want to talk to you about her. Did she love you, 
do you think, a little? Did she ever see heaven’s blue 
once? I hope she did. I hope you did. People have 
vulgarized passion by talking about it, but passion is 
very beautiful, and like all beautiful things, diffi- 
cult to understand. But, again, like all beautiful 
things, very common. People say beauty is rare, 
how blind they are! Every omnibus that passes 
is a great galleon of high adventure. And beauty! 
Look at blades of grass, or the backward swaying of an 
earwig calling her young. 

“I have a mind like a sponge, and I’m squeezing 
it all on you. Why? An odd hour before dinner, 
and only the light over my desk, and those books 


A PARCEL OF BOOKS 


157 


before me waiting to be packed. Fancy packing 
Browning! It sounds almost as bad as torturing 
Greig into a roll of paper for a mechanical instru- 
ment. I’m playing on my heart-strings to amuse 
myself. Can you guess why? Because in my own 
odd way I suppose I love you. To whom else do 
middle-aged women play the song of their joys and 
sorrows? And I’m sending you of my best, and 
you may wonder, but will you know? Will a chance 
chord in you answer me? 

“For God’s sake, write to me. That sounds ve- 
hement, but I’m in Hell for the moment — my own 
private and particular Hell, of my own making and 
so without the charity of God. I can’t tell you what 
it is — it’s a woman’s Hell, full of mean things. Think 
of an angel with a broken wing. I could have been 
so different, and yet I love my husband. That’s 
enough. I can understand the people who whipped 
themselves for love of God. 

“In this dark night of life I come to you, asking 
the door of your heart to be open that I may fly in 
there and sit silent till compassion heals me. This 
is too old and odd for you, perhaps, and yet I seem 
to read you in your letters as getting to know the 
world that lies beneath the surface. The old priest, 
the dying child, that story of the broken woman who 
came back, you understand those things. 

“What will you do with your life? If you want 
to be happy, give it away. If a woman asks for it, 
give it to her, even if she hurts you. Pain is the 
only garment Saint Peter will recognize at once. 


158 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


Suffering is knowledge. It warps some people; it has 
warped me, but I’m a coward. 

“ Nearly all the people I know died either of as- 
sumed respectability or assumed vice. Grace Almirac, 
who is only a frame for other people’s pictures, has got 
one hurt, the burning desire to be separated from the 
crowd if only by more paint on her lips than the world 
allows, or more leg than we agree to show. How it 
must hurt to be like that. And Flip, my daughter, 
who showed you heaven for a moment in a kiss, what is 
she like? We talk, she and I, in well-bred whispers — 
that’s all. And something is making her miserable now, 
and she draws into her shell, and I, who carried her and 
bore her, know nothing. We are acquaintances, that’s all. 

“I don’t feel like a mother or a sister to you, but 
like a woman, more than a friend and not like a lover — 
just a woman, and I’m getting on for fifty. Does that 
shock you? And we have only met once or twice. 
It isn’t morbid or unpleasant, but just the need for 
love some people have. 

“ Don’t mind this letter; burn it if you like, or keep 
it to think about. Only don’t laugh at it; I couldn’t 
bear that. And don’t think it’s a phase because the 
next you get will be merely flippant. How’s my 
splendid counterpart, the cow? Stroke her wet nose 
for me and tell her I wouldn’t dare to come within 
twenty yards of her. Do you want socks or soap, or 
anything, or are you fearfully self-reliant about those 
kind of things? 

“I’m getting fat. Good-bye. 

“Augusta.” 


A PARCEL OF BOOKS 


159 


In the silence of the room it was as if a voice had 
stopped speaking. He put the letter down and stared 
out of the window at the cold, moonlit snow. The 
whole of him seemed not so much body as something 
floating, and she seemed to float by him, and he 
wondered if it was what people called thought-trans- 
ference that made him know she was crying. 

He roused himself and lit another pipe and put 
away the letter in a drawer. But he could not shut 
out the feelings it gave him every time he read it. 
That she should love him he could not understand, but 
all she said fitted in with the new sense of compassion 
he was acquiring. The poetry she had sent him had 
winged him along unfamiliar ways, and lifted him above 
familiar thoughts. There was no woman in his life 
but one, and she a dream-woman, wonderful, elusive, 
and her kisses were cool in his dreams, and sometimes 
they scorched him. He had not answered that letter: 
the words would not come. He had written to her of 
his plants and cows and daily life, and at the end he had 
put — 

“I will write to you one day when I understand 
what is happening to me.” 

But he would not say any more, for it seemed to 
him that it would be unfaithful to the woman of his 
dreams. 


CHAPTER XVI 


WOMAN 

F ERVENT reading for a lonely man, those poets. 

They sang wine and woman and high adven- 
ture by the crackling logs; golden galleons swam 
into that lamplit room, and strange faces peered over 
their bulwarks, and strange scented songs rose from 
their lips, and the full red roses of their mouths made 
mock at him. Green eyes and gray, blue eyes and 
brown looked out from the shadows of the room; pale 
hands like flowers seemed to play soft music. 

“She held a little cithern by the strings, 

Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-colored hair 
Of some dead lute-player 
That in dead years had done delicious things.” 

Sometimes Timothy would look up from his book, 
his face rapt as the face of one who comes wonderingly 
out of a dream and doubts the world, yet doubts the 
dream as well. 

Outside the frosted stars burned in a purple mystery 
of sky, the river went complaining through her rocks, 
the snow-white mantle held the sleeping earth. 

He would look as if for some evidence that the world 
was real and see the flickering shadow of his microscope, 
and the star of red firelight living in his glass of wine like 
a chained spirit or the genie of a ruby half alive. Things 
real would come out of the room and take their normal 
160 


WOMAN 


161 


shapes. That chair: surely Faustine sat there with her 
“shapely silver shoulder.” 

One night he leapt up, throwing down a book and 
rousing the great dog who slept by the fire. His 
head was light perhaps with reading, but his blood 
burned. His dream-woman, compound of all the 
poets’ verses, had sat with him that night, with eyes 
like green-gray seas that looked at him, now veiled, 
now glowing, now pure and sweet, now awful with 
passion’s secret. She said, “Go back to cities and 
your kind, love as men love; drink life. You were not 
born to live alone.” 

So he went out into the night and bade the dog 
keep watch, and found his skis and sticks and carried 
them along the footway to the village, his feet crunching 
the snow. 

It was bright moonlight and the houses seemed 
huddled together for warmth, and the bridge was like 
a silver span across a black stream torn with starlit 
foam. On the bridge he strapped his skis firmly, then 
took the road. 

Can a man fly from himself? It seemed impossible. 
Even as he went swiftly, looking like some strange, 
dark bird against the snow, questions rose into his 
mind, questions of the life he was living. On and on he 
sped, sweeping the corners in big curves, until by 
Gedre, where they were cutting the new road, he stopped 
to breathe. 

He was sound now of wind and limb, and had been 
for two years; he knew it. Why then should he stay 
here like an anchorite and listen to the old mumbling 


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CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


priest and the thrice-told tales of guides and hunters, 
and grub for plants and flowers, and milk great lazy- 
eyed cows? He was a man, and there were women in 
the world, strange women with limbs of silver and hair 
that held secrets and mocking eyes that lured him on. 

He wiped the sweat from his eyes and looked about 
him. Night in her purple and silver, her sky set 
orderly with stars, her hushed velvet shadows, her robe 
of thrilling mystery, held him enchanted. The moun- 
tains pushed their shoulders into the stars as if to claim 
a place in the heavens; long shadows slanted from them 
and a little fitful wind stirred the snow dust into 
diamonds where the moonlight strayed. 

The silence of the night spoke to him, and he looked 
up at the stars and wondered if those who believed 
in a God thought He dwelt beyond those shining 
spaces and held a golden court with soft music and the 
perfumed breath of saints ascending with songs of 
adoration. 

He seemed a body all pulses, all throbbing, all torn 
with wild desires. 

Then he sped on again and the houses of the village 
flew past him and the trees and rocks. Ten miles he 
went before he turned, the fever still on him. He went 
more painfully now, with stiff er limbs and slower strides 
for the climb home. He asked for cities and rows of 
lights and the look of a theater or a restaurant. He 
wanted rare wine and good food and company and the 
oft laughter of women and gold in his purse. 

The climb back told on him: his knees and ankles 
felt the strain, and as he went, with his mouth dry and 


WOMAN 


163 


open, his desire grew into the desire of an athlete and 
the rest went by. The last five miles cured him of his 
fever; he was all a man of sinew now, and wind. As he 
came past the Chaos where great rocks are piled fan- 
tastically, he drew his first breath as a free man, free of 
his horrors, and knew himself cured because he had 
become his own man again. 

His dog scented him, a hundred yards from home, and 
barked a welcome and drummed the floor with his tail 
and fawned at him. 

“Old chap,” said Timothy as he took off his boots, 
“we have been in Hell and it’s a rotten place. We’ll 
have a bite of something together and be sane.” 
Then he saw the overthrown books on the floor and 
smiled, for one page of a book had a great dog’s-paw 
print on it. 

He threw open the window, and having fetched a 
bottle of wine and some bread and cheese, he sat 
waiting for the dawn by the open window, his dog 
happy beside him with his head on Timothy’s knee 
and his great sad eyes on his face. 

“Peter,” said Timothy, “when the sun touches the 
top of those mountains it will not be just to-morrow, 
but a new year, a real new year.” 

There is something exquisite in the birth of a day; 
it begins with such cold promise, gray, no light, with no 
beauty like a day’s death at twilight, but chill and 
almost mean. Then one can feel the world waiting, 
and by slow degrees the gray grows to a tender green, 
and then the roseate light grows on the snow like some 
wonderful flower of the sky unfolding. 


164 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


March was a wild month — teasing winds and swirl- 
ing snow, black skies torn with blood-red at sunset, 
and pale skies full of a watery gleam at sunrise, with 
the mountain tops clear and black. Mists came into 
the valley, and there were whole days when Timothy 
lived in a cloud. 

Then April came with her green fingers and began 
her delicate work; the snow crept back and the white 
crocus bloomed. 

One night the Cure and Henri and Victor Pic sat 
over the fire in Timothy’s study and told stories, 
mountain sagas full of the minutest detail. It was 
toward the middle of the month, and the little white 
daffodils were out in the fields and gentian and grape- 
flowers made blue patches like fallen sky. Victor Pic 
had stories of smuggling and the Cure of strange things, 
such as the hill where the witches met near Saint 
Palais and where no one would feed cattle or let their 
children stray, until the Bishop blessed it and a big 
statue of Our Lady was placed there. And Henri 
was in the middle of a story of bear-shooting when he 
was a boy and lived over on the Spanish side. 

The firelight filtered through the Cure’s hands as he 
held them out to the blaze and made a crimson outline 
to his fingers, and Victor Pic leaned back in comfort 
with a cigar in his mouth, following the story he had 
heard twenty times. And Henri was describing with 
dramatic action the picture of himself behind a tree 
with his rifle ready for the moment the bear should 
break through the undergrowth. Nuts, raisins and 
wine and figs were on the table, and Henri was en- 


WOMAN 


1 65 


trenched behind two bottles with a plate of almonds to 
represent the undergrowths before him. It was half- 
past nine in the evening. 

Just as Henri raised an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, 
there came a knock at the out-door and he paused. 
Timothy looked round, and the Cure said, “ Some one for 
me, I expect.” There was the sound of voices in the 
hall, and all at once Timothy’s heart leapt. Then the 
door was opened by Uranie, and a girl in dark furs stood 
there saying, “I’m not a ghost!” 

“Flip!” said Timothy. 

“And very tired,” she answered. “What a funny 
room for you.” 

All the men were standing, and she looked the 
littlest thing beside them. She had some scent that 
seemed to faintly perfume the room, and she was 
flushed with cold. 

Timothy, scarcely believing his senses, presented his 
friends. 

“I am sure I am in the way, but I can’t help it,” she 
said, smiling at each of them in turn. “But here I am.” 
And she began to take off her furs. 

“We were just about to leave, Madame,” said the 
Cure. 

“Oh, please don’t leave because of me. Pinch me, 
Tim. I’m real. Aren’t you brown!” 

“Wemust indeed go,” said Victor Pic, who held his 
cigar behind his back. 

Never until she came had Timothy noticed how 
rough and primitive they all looked. The Cure in his 
faded black, Victor Pic in a rough blue suit and a 


166 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


brown shirt, Henri in his Sunday black, and he in an old 
Norfolk jacket and a shirt open at the neck and innocent 
of tie. 

She gave a hand to each as they passed out, and as 
Timothy bade them good night Henri whispered in his 
ear, “I shot her clean through the heart.” 

“Was he whispering about me?” said Flip as soon as 
the door was closed. 

“It was nothing,” said Timothy, staring at her. 

“Do tell. Did he say I was nice?” 

“If you want to know, he said, ‘I shot her clean 
through the heart.’” 

“Is he a murderer?” she exclaimed. 

“The she was a bear.” 

“How awfully exciting. Could I have something to 
eat?” 

“I’ll take you down to the hotel,” he answered. 

“I’m not going to the hotel,” said Flip. 

“But you mustn’t stay here.” 

“I asked your servant if there was a room for me 
— in my brother’s house, I said, and she said, ‘Mais 
oui.’ Could I have something to eat?” 

How curious it was to be with her in his room, 
in the chair reserved for the dream-ladies, all spark- 
ling with her youth, his dog, now certain of her, by 
her side. A tenderness for her leapt up in him at once. 
And she brought London into the room with her. 

“Flip,” he said, “I don’t know what you are doing 
or why you are here, but I do know this — off you go to 
the hotel.” 

“Don’t be cross,” she said, and made a little 


WOMAN 167 

mouth at him. “And do, do, do get me something to 
eat.” 

He smiled as he opened the door and called to Uranie 
to bring some food and received for reply, “It’s coming, 
Monsieur.” 

Flip had poured out a glass of wine for herself 
and was munching almonds with great composure. 
The dignified St. Bernard, Peter, had one carefully 
balanced on his nose. 

“I’ve run away,” she said, without looking at him. 

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, “Why to me?” 
but he refrained and said instead, “So it seems.” 

“I think you are very dull,” said Flip. “You’ve 
grown stuffy. We had a beautiful drive in a sleigh.” 

“We!” 

“I said I’d run away.” 

“Flip,” he said seriously, “if you have run away, 
where is the young man? There is a young man, I 
suppose.” 

“Oh, it’s Pinch,” she said, and looked suddenly up 
at him with questioning eyes. 

“Pinch? Who is Pinch, you little bundle of 
wickedness?” 

Then, to his surprise, she got up, put her arms 
round his neck and began to cry. Uranie — awkward 
that — found them so when she brought in the soup. 

“Darling Tim,” Flip sobbed, “Pinch is Lord Al- 
mirac and we ran away the day before yesterday, 
and I’m very frightened and I made him bring me here. 
Don’t be angry.” 

“My dear,” said Timothy gently, “I’m not angry. 


168 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


I’m angry with Almirac, but not with you. Come 
along and drink your soup and you’ll fell better.” 

She sat down tearfully to her soup, with the dog again 
besideher. She looked like a naughty child more than 
the betrayer of homes. Despite himself, Timothy 
smiled at her. 

“Tell me all about it,” he said when she was eating 
hot chicken, miraculously produced by Uranie. 

“He was lonely and I was lonely, and we used to 
meet, and then we used to meet more often, and then — 
then it happened. And now it’s all very miserable.” 

“And Almirac is at the hotel. Does anyone 
know?” 

“You see,” she said, helping herself to more chicken, 
“we were frightened and excited, and so I thought 
we ought to leave notes — so I left one for Mother, 
and he left one for Grace. We didn’t say where we 
were going or anything. We just said, ‘ Things have 
been too strong for us.’ At least, I put that.” 

She came from her chair and seated herself at his 
feet by the fire and began picking at the rug with her 
fingers. “As soon as it happened I knew — will you 
be very angry? — I knew I had really loved you all the 
time. Tim dear, I’ve not been very good — do you 
understand? — since you have been away. I have tried 
— I promise I have tried. And in the boat as we came 
over — we were going to Paris — I made him promise to 
bring me here. Pinch is very kind, but it was all a 
mistake. I thought of you and what you wrote to me 
about the mountains, and I thought perhaps you’d be 
kind to me.” 


WOMAN 


169 


He found himself stroking her hair. He found himself 
with a deep tenderness for the little bruised kitten at 
his feet. “My dear,” he said, “what about Almirac? 
Almirac has left everything for you, burned his boats 
too. I don’t know what to say to you.” 

“Do you love me still — a little bit?” 

He was silent. He had put aside women for so long, 
and here came this little soft thing creeping back to him 
because she was hurt. She came now and sat on his 
knee and put her head on his shoulder like a child. 

“I do so want to be loved,” she said. “And you 
are so different from other people, Tim dear. Don’t 
scold me to-night, because I’m so tired. May I go 
to bed soon, and will you lend me some pajamas? 
I’m not bad really. It — happened. I think Pinch 
is really very fond of me.” 

What could he do with a little soft thing like this? 
She came to him with a sense of absolute trust, as a 
child might go to her nurse and say, “I’ve done some- 
thing I oughtn’t to have done.” And it was very 
delicious to feel her warm body in his arms and to feel 
the gentle stirring in his heart. He knew what the 
world thought of women like Flip and he resented that 
feeling. As he thought this, remaining silent, he felt 
her give a comfortable snuggle in his arms, and looking 
down he saw that she had fallen asleep. 

There were his cold stars looking at him and the 
dog asleep by the fire, and there was he with a woman, 
a girl rather, who had once meant all the world to him, 
asleep in his arms. 

Then he began to think out the situation clearly, 


170 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


and print seemed to start up before him, the cold, 
insistent vulgarity of newspaper headlines, “Elop- 
ing Couple,” “Brewer’s Daughter and Earl” — that 
sort of thing, and it sickened him. He thought 
of Almirac staying obediently at the hotel, and of 
the sort of interview he would have with him in the 
morning. Flip looked such a child, and it was in 
this way she launched on her career as a woman. 
Perhaps Mrs. Newberry and Grace would keep it 
very quiet until it must be known. If so, it would 
be wiser for the two of them, Almirac and Flip, to 
go back quietly. Mrs. Newberry could fetch them 
from Paris. Grace would forgive. 

Would Grace Almirac forgive? Would he forgive 
under the circumstances? It was no easy matter 
to weigh coldly the hurt it might have done to the 
woman. It might be that she was the sort of woman 
who would say nothing and do nothing; there was that 
kind of woman. 

She had said she loved him, had loved him all the 
time. He looked at the sleeping girl and smiled 
very tenderly at her. Was the flame flower in her 
that she could love at all? She and Almirac — he 
wouldn’t think of it. 

He woke her gently, and she stood up, pink with 
sleep, and rubbed her eyes and looked at him. “Oh, 
yes, I remember!” she said. “I was dreaming I was in 
the train. I’ll go to bed now, please.” 

There was a little room he had prepared against the 
time when he should have a guest. He had thought 
George Weatherby would be the first, and now it 


WOMAN 


171 


was, of all people, Flip who took the candle from his 
hand and murmured drowsily, “Pajamas.” 

He fetched the incongruous garments and gave 
them to her as she stood sleepily in the doorway, then, 
as he said “Good night” and turned to go, she came 
up to him and lifted her face. “I’ll be good. I 
shall like being here.” As he kissed her forehead, 
he felt suddenly as if he had a grown-up daughter who 
had come home. 

Before he went to bed he thought out a solution 
very carefully. He would put the matter before Almirac 
and show him that the situation was impossible. He 
would get him to write to his wife saying that he was 
staying at the hotel and she at his house. Then he 
would write to Mrs. Newberry and ask her to come to 
him and to take her daughter back. 

Out there, with the pure white silence about him, 
the affair seemed easy to settle, so that he went to 
bed in that superior frame of mind a man has who 
has complacently arranged the lives of several people. 


CHAPTER XVII 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 

T HE first sight that met Timothy’s eyes in the 
morning was the amazing picture of a fashion 
plate looking at a cow. Almirac, in perfect-fitting 
Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, a green soft hat, 
and his inevitable cigarette in its long holder, was 
standing regarding Augusta the cow. Somehow the 
sight made Timothy laugh, and he was annoyed, as he 
had intended to be very serious and masterful. 

Almirac heard the laugh and turned languidly to- 
ward the house, greeting Timothy with a touch of 
his finger to his hat and the words “ Bally early.” 

“Have you had any breakfast?” said Timothy, 
holding out his hand. 

“Never breakfast,” said Almirac, stepping on to the 
veranda, “ I think it’s an overrated meal.” 

“This is a nice mess,” said Timothy. “What are 
we going to do about it?” 

Almirac sat down very slowly and comfortably, 
threw away his cigarette, and said, “Nothin’.” 

“What do you mean by nothing?” said Timothy 
hotly. “I can’t keep Flip here.” 

“I don’t want you to.” 

172 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 173 


“ You’ve done a stupid — well, you’ve done a wicked 
thing, bringing this girl out here. She’s going home, 
Almirac. I’m going to see that she goes home.” 

Almirac drew a telegram from his pocket and silently 
handed it to Timothy. It read: “I will never see or 
speak you again. — Grace.” 

“How did she know your address?” said Timothy. 

“I wired from Paris.” 

“You wired?” said Timothy. “Why? Good Lord, 
man, can’t you see you had a chance to square things 
up for Flip, and you have deliberately smashed every- 
thing.” 

“I meant to,” he answered. 

“You know what you have done,” said Timothy, 
very deliberately, “you have ruined this girl’s life as 
well as your own. Flip can’t go back into society.” 

“I’m fed up with society,” said Almirac. 

“Perhaps she isn’t.” 

“I don’t think you know very much about either 
of us,” said Almirac with his peculiar drawl. “I 
never thought you knew much about anybody. I 
mean, you’re a bit up in the air, old chap, and we are 
a bit down in the mud. I didn’t bolt with Flip for 
fun.” 

“Then why in the name of all that’s wonderful did 
you bolt with her?” 

“I had to.” 

He said it firmly and finally, leaving Timothy per- 
plexed and exasperated. 

“It isn’t the straight thing,” he said at last. 

Almirac looked him full in the face for the first 


174 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


time during the talk. “We are neither of us exactly 
saints. You haven’t lived with Grace — I have.” 

“You could have left her by some — some arrange- 
ment, surely, without ruining this child.” 

“ Flip and I,” said Almirac, lighting another cigarette, 
“ met at the time we had to meet. I was at a breakin’ 
point and so was she, and here we are.” 

It was difficult to look at the perfect rest and ease 
of Lord Almirac and to imagine that he could ever 
have a crisis in his life. He was as calm and unruf- 
fled as his hair, and this very calmness nearly drove 
Timothy mad with annoyance. If it was a ques- 
tion of a great passion — well and good, it was done 
and over, and one must do the best with the affair. 
But this level, calm, Club way of doing it, with no 
romance, it seemed awful to him. And he said so. 

“You talk a lot of footle,” said Almirac. 

“Your attitude makes the whole affair disgusting,” 
said Timothy. 

Almirac stretched himself comfortably before he 
spoke. “I’ve been livin’ in a kind of hell. I never 
knew Grace month by month, changin’ her face and 
her hair and her pals. She married me because 
she was in a fix. I’m not very easily moved or shocked, 
but she was disgustin’, absolutely disgustin’. I’ve 
paid other men’s bills, and saved her from goodness 
knows what fixes time and time again, and it bored 
me, old chap, bored me stiff. I got fed up. She’s all 
right for money, I’ve seen to that. I knew she’d send 
that telegram. She’s mad now because I didn’t come 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 175 

creeping back to her. I was rather fond of her once in 
my way.” 

“All this doesn’t explain Flip,” said Timothy. 

“She can explain herself if she likes; I’m not going 
to.” 

“Why bring me into it?” 

“Ask her,” said Almirac. 

“Look here, Almirac,” said Timothy, “are you in 
love with her?” 

“You’ve absolutely hit it,” said Almirac. 

Timothy got up from his chair and began to pace 
the veranda. The whole thing puzzled him; it lacked 
the heat and wonder of a romance, and yet here was a 
situation romantic in itself. It wasn’t part of his 
character that he should think at all of romance. It 
was his winter diet of the poets that played him false. 
He felt as if he was beating air when he thought. Al- 
mirac would go into no solution he put before himself; 
it was altogether outside his range. If one loved 
enough to break all the rules of society, surely it would 
not be in this calm, almost insolent manner that Al- 
mirac displayed. The only thing he could think of 
saying was, “Well, what are you going to do?” 

“Ask her,” said Almirac. 

“Don’t you see that the situation’s impossible? 
I can’t have her here with me. Why doesn’t she stay 
at the hotel with you?” 

“My dear feller,” said Almirac, slowly rising, “ask 
me another. She thinks you are a marvel, and she 
went like a bird to see you. That’s all about it. She 
didn’t want to stay at the hotel, so she didn’t. I never 


176 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


argue with a woman; I just wait. I’m goin’ down now 
to find a paper; I wired for an English paper. There’ll 
be the deuce of a row. You’d better come and lunch 
at the hotel and bring Flip. So long. Sorry to be so 
much bother.” 

Timothy watched the departing figure out of sight. 
Almirac, with his lounging walk of the pavements of 
London, with his gold-topped stick and air of gorgeous 
languidness, was a figure quite out of the landscape 
of snow and mountains. When Almirac had turned a 
corner and vanished, Timothy heard a voice behind 
him say, “So that’s over.” And looking round he saw 
Flip. She was wrapped up in one of his big coats, 
below which he saw the pink ends of pajamas and her 
bare feet thrust into a pair of his slippers. 

“I heard you talking,” she explained, “so I jumped 
out of bed and found these things and listened.” 

“So you listened,” he said, looking at her and noting 
how charming and quaint she looked in her odd attire. 

“It wasn’t mean, because it was about me,” she 
answered. “And now I want my coffee.” 

“ Go and dress,” he ordered. 

“I’m perfectly respectable, Tim dear.” 

“You musn’t call me Tim dear.” 

“Musn’t I call you Tim dear, Tim darling?” 

“That is just naughtiness,” said Timothy. “I 
don’t know what to do with you. It’s impossible 
to treat this seriously, because of you, and yet, just 
because of you, I must treat it seriously.” 

“The awkward part of it is I’m in love with you.” 

He groaned. “Be sensible,” he said. 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 177 


“You didn’t mind last night/’ said Flip, looking 
the most innocent child in the world. 

“ Go in and I’ll get you your coffee.” 

She smiled in a bewitching way and obeyed him, 
shuffling along in his slippers, a preposterous, at- 
tractive figure, not at all the figure of a tragedy. 
And as he looked at her that warm tenderness crept 
into his heart again, and he murmured to himself, 
“What a baby!” 

As she sat at the table eating her roll and drink- 
ing her cafe au lait, Flip did not look a day older 
than sixteen. She had done her hair in a plait and 
tied it with a big bow of blue ribbon, and she looked 
so small in the man’s coat that it seemed incongruous 
to begin talking to her as to a woman who had run 
away with another woman’s husband and who then 
calmly had gone to another man and said, “ I love you.” 
Yet there she was, and there were many things to say. 

“it seems a muddle,” said Flip, “and it is a muddle. 
Now, don’t look so severe; you’re not the judge. 
I’ll explain. You see, I can’t feel I’ve done fearfully 
wrong, and that makes it more difficult, doesn’t it? 
I don’t feel so very wicked, but I suppose I am. Pinch 
used to come to me and tell me things; poor old Pinch, 
he did have a rotten time. Grace was always about 
with the newest thing: first it was Mackay, the man 
who does those funny black-and-white drawings, and 
then it was Kroszek, the dancer, and so on, you under- 
stand — and poor old Pinch was utterly miserable, like 
a dog, and he came to me. I did flirt with him a little 
bit, just to get rid of his wretched face and to make 


178 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


him buck up. Tim dear, I wasn’t being awfully good 
myself, but that’s nothing. You know Pinch’s ex- 
pression — ‘‘driftin’ about, dear gal, driftin’ about” — 
well, we both drifted a bit. He had rooms in Saint 
James’s Street, and I went there one day and — well, I 
was tremendously in love with a married man then and 
very unhappy about it, and we talked a bit. It was 
about four o’clock, and we didn’t turn on the lights. 
Did firelight and tea ever get into your head on a 
November day? We kind of melted to each other, I 
think. Are you angry? Grace got worse and worse. 
I mean she got so conspicuous. Then she took to 
drugs and became rather unpleasant. You see how 
bad it was for poor old Pinch. Then we thought 
we’d run away. Tim dear, I got so sick of intrigue 
and London and the house and not being married. 
I could have married heaps of times, but I didn’t 
want to and now I only know for the first time that 
it was because of you. You are the only person I 
am ever really honest with. I was sorry for Pinch. 
Oh, it is so difficult to say, because it all sounds so 
horrid; I suppose to strict people it is horrid. I can’t 
help being myself, can I? 

“So we arranged everything, and when it really 
came to going away you seemed to be calling to me 
all the time. I don’t know why. You seemed to be 
out of fussing things here, and I thought if I came 
to you I could straighten things out a bit — but there’s 
poor old Pinch, isn’t there?” 

“There very distinctly is,” said Timothy. 

“He is in love with me,” said Flip. 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 179 


“I wonder quite what I think of you,” said Timothy. 
“I don’t know if you have any heart at all. You 
have broken up this man’s home ” 

“Oh, I didn’t do that,” she said quickly. “He 
had no home; he had only two houses, and they always 
full of strangers. I am real to you, really and truly 
real. I can’t live with him. My feelings are all gone 
for him, now he’s away from Grace. He was so lonely, 
don’t you understand? If you’d been a woman and 
seen him in his rooms — alone! I don’t know if you 
know what I mean, but it seems so much more pitiful 
for a well-dressed man with an eyeglass to have a great 
sorrow than for ordinary people. And I am so weak. 
You wouldn’t expect me to live with him for ever just 
because — well, just because we didn’t turn up the lights, 
would you? We can all be great friends.” 

Timothy got up and put his hand on her shoulder. 
“What are you?” he said. “A devil, a witch, a 
woman, or a child — I don’t know. You don’t love 
me. You only want to be petted, and it’s very difficult 
not to pet you. Are you going to throw over that 
poor devil? Do you think you can throw him over 
and bring your beautiful poison into my house? What 
do you expect me to do? Do you expect me to ask 
you to marry me and ask Almirac to be best man? 
Because I’m not going to do it. You must go home. 
I’ll see to Almirac.” 

“He’d only follow me.” 

“Yes,” said Timothy in despair, “I suppose he 
would.” 

“I would be very good here; I could be good in 


180 


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this quiet place. I wouldn’t be in your way, I promise. 
Tim dearest, I’ve knocked about and I’m bruised. 
Pinch is only an incident. I’ve been through the mill 
of society and not come out very well; my sort don’t. 
We aren’t bad; we are weak. All the emotional things 
you do kill you — the dances and suppers and flirtations, 
and the awfully easy slack way you live, and the loose 
way people talk, and the little they think of things. 
I know that what little heart I have has always been 
yours. You are different from the ordinary man, 
Tim. I know all about my father. I’m like him, but 
men can do those things and keep their place in the 
world, and women can’t. I can’t go back now, and I 
can’t live with Pinch. When he isn’t sad and doesn’t 
want comforting, he bores me, dear, he bores me hor- 
ribly. Is that a dreadful thing to say? You have to 
pay for the kiss too many, but what can a girl like me 
do? You used to think me like a fairy once. Per- 
haps I am like one: they have no souls.” 

“Go and dress,” said Timothy. “I’ve got to think 
this thing out.” 

She got up, her eyes fixed on his face, then she took 
three cigarettes from a box on the table and went 
quickly out of the room. 

Timothy stood with his head in his hands for a 
moment, trying to fix his thoughts, and his mind 
went round and round and he became more perplexed 
at every turn. Just as he was staring blankly out of 
the window she stole back into the room and said, with 
a sweet apologetic smile, “I am so sorry, but I haven’t 
any matches.” 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 181 


What was he to do with a girl like that? 

He felt that he must arrive at some conclusion before 
lunch and then go to Almirac with a settled plan. If 
Flip refused to go home and refused to live with 
Almirac until they could be married, then there seemed 
no way out of it. There was no one who could help 
him, not a soul to whom he could turn. What would 
Mrs. Newberry have done, he wondered; he felt that 
she would have had some clear-headed plan for putting 
things straight. 

With Spring in the air and in his blood he walked 
with Flip from his house to the hotel. She stole 
quick glances at him by the way and saw his face 
set and stern. Come what might, he was thinking; he 
would not allow any outside influence to spoil the severity 
he felt bound to exercise. So, when she put her hand 
into his and said, “Isn’t it jolly, you and me walking 
like this?” he answered, “No,” and took his hand away. 

Almirac was sitting outside the hotel, sipping an 
absinthe. They could see his long, neat figure from a 
long way off. He was just the figure the hotel liked 
to put in its picture advertisements. He waved his 
cigarette-holder in welcome. 

“I’ve ordered a special lunch,” he said. 

“How you can think of food with this hanging 
over your head, I don’t know,” said Timothy. 

“Must eat, dear boy, must eat. Why not eat well? 
Have one of these?” He pointed to the absinthe. 

“Very well, I will,” said Timothy. “And we’ll 
go into this affair before food.” 

“I’m not going to argue,” said Almirac quietly. 


182 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I will tell you what I have decided,” said Flip. 

‘ ‘It is very simple. I admit I made a mistake in running 
away with Pinch, and I can’t go home now, so Pinch 
can go home if he likes, but I’m going to stay here with 
Timothy. You see, it’s quite simple.” 

“ You won’t stay with me,” said Timothy grimly. 

“ I will be a sister to you.” 

“I don’t require a sister,” said he. 

“ Somebody has got to look after me,” said Flip. 

“I have never tasted absinthe; may I sip?” 

“What do you say, Almirac?” said Timothy. 

“I’ve got nothin’ to say except that where Flip is I 
shall be there too. And if it’s here, all the better. 
I’m sick of driftin’ about, sick of it. As soon as the 
thing can be done, we’ll be married.” 

“Never,” said Flip. 

“The whole thing is indecent,” said Timothy. 

“If you won’t have me and I won’t go to the hotel, 
where am I to go? Because I won’t go home,” said 
Flip. “Do you think it is more proper for me to be P 
here with Pinch than with you?” 

“You’ve run away with him.” 

“Yes, but I know now that was a mistake. I’ve 
done with that. Pinch dear, I’ll always be awfully 
fond of you, but you know how careless lam.” 

“Good Lord!” said Timothy. 

“You’ll come round when you get bored,” said 
Almirac. 

“Flip,” said Timothy, “you want smacking.” 

“I daresay it would be awfully good for me, dear/’ 
she said, smiling up into his face. 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 183 


“You must take rooms in another hotel,” said 
Timothy. “What do you think your mother will say 
if I tell her you are with me? I’ve got a reputation to 
keep up.” 

“Nobody need know; they can’t find out.” 

“What about luggage labels?” said Timothy 
quickly. 

She blushed a little and said, “Would you mind 
very much if I told you I’d altered mine in Paris 
when I knew I was coming here? If you look in the 
hall you’ll see them.” 

He jumped up and went up the steps into the hall 
and saw three huge trunks bearing labels, on which was 
written in a large round hand, “P. Swift.” 

“And how did you manage to procure all this 
luggage?” said Timothy, coming back to her with a 
dangerous gleam in his eyes. 

“Mother thought I was going away for a week-end,” 
said Flip simply. 

“I suppose the mere act of running away is com- 
promising,” said Timothy, “otherwise ” 

“Don’t bother about otherwise,” said Almirac. “I 
took pains to make it as compromisin’ as possible. 
I left a compromisin’ letter for Grace, and a compro- 
misin’ letter for my solicitor. I took jolly good care 
to see that I should never go back to my wife. I’m 
fed up, dear boy, fed absolutely up. Deuce of a time 
they take gettin’ grub ready.” 

“So you see, Tim dear, what I said is best,” said Flip. 
“Now I’m going to wash.” 

When he was left alone with Almirac, Timothy 


184 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


said, “I’m done. I don’t know what I ought to do. 
What do you feel about it?” 

Almirac roused himself with a mighty effort and 
fixed his eyeglass more firmly in his eye. “I’ll tell you 
all about it,” he said. “I know her and so do you. 
She’ll come and stay with you and she’ll make you in 
love with her, I’ll bet you seven to four. I’ll make it 
ten to one, and it’s a gift. No good shakin’ your head, 
dear boy, she’ll do it. She must have people in love 
with her, and that’s all about it. Then when you are in 
love with her she’ll get fed up with you and want to 
try it on somebody else. It’s her nature. I’m goin’ 
to be the somebody else. I’m always goin’ to be the 
somebody else. I don’t mind because I’m in love with 
her myself — always shall be, and I’ve got to stick the 
other affairs. She’s born like it, dear boy, and bred 
like it, and you can’t change ’em. Full of go, full of 
spirit. I’m not one to talk of morals, but there you 
are — she ain’t got any. It’s been left out of her, clean 
out. She’s a kitten, dear boy, a kitten, but I don’t 
mind. She’s perfectly honest in her way. She knows 
she can’t help it. I’ll bet you she’ll be with you a 
couple of months and then — off. How in thunder I’m 
going to stick this place for eight hairy great weeks I 
don’t know. I do know it’ll finish her. She’ll want 
to go and dance the Tango or go to a theater, or some 
tommyrot, and she’ll go. And so shall I. I shall 
miss the racin’ and the evenin’ paper, and I shall 
miss a heap of things, but I shall be about all the time. 
I’m not arguing; I’m statin’ a fact.” 

“Dejeuner is ready,” said a waiter. 


PRESERVING THE PROPRIETIES 185 

“Come along,” said Flip from a window, “I’ve 
begun.” 

That afternoon two mules bore strange burdens on 
their backs — three huge trunks with labels in round 
handwriting — to the door of Timothy’s house. 

That night Timothy wrote a long letter to Mrs. 
Newberry, beginning — 

“lam trying to preserve the proprieties . . . .” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 

S TERN moralists would have shaken their heads over 
Mrs. Newberry’s letter. Stern moralists indeed 
would have, and did, shake their heads over the whole 
affair. It was denounced as heartless, destructive to 
all British decency, and the newspapers had their usual 
joyous task of handling the muck-rake. But the affair 
Philippina-Almirac refused to become high tragedy. 

In the first place, the surroundings were Greek in 
conception. One had the mountains, the eternal snow, 
a valley fantastically strewn with rocks and torn by 
rushing streams. One had the lonely house where lived 
a man once engaged to the woman in the case. One had 
a man of noble birth, a girl of exquisite loveliness; one 
had behind this an outraged and beautiful woman. 
What more is possible? It is the very scenery for a 
saga, it is set to the haunting discords of passion, it is the 
story of wrecked and maimed lives and loves, a great 
and inspiring subject. Take the people — you have 
admirable contrast: Grace the mould of modernity 
with the artistic temperament artificially developed, 
quivering with the emotion of the moment; Philippina 
the luxurious, of no age or date, type of the flirt of all 
time; Almirac, wife-crushed, dogged; Timothy, a man 
whom circumstances had developed into a reasoning 
186 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 


187 


being touched by nature and the poets. These should 
be passionate puppets and stalk with dignity the world’s 
stage. But no, these were not saga-built people, where 
muffled drums ought to have replied to the wail of 
piccolos and the plucked strings of violins. There 
persisted instead the butterfly air with a comedian’s 
touch of Pan Pipes, and a solo at that, not a full 
band. 

Here comes your moralist full-blooded at the situa- 
tion — back goes the erring husband to the weeping 
wife; back goes the young woman to her home, or, 
better, “ Get thee to a nunnery,” and your young man, 
“ Charles, his friend,” of the story remains dignified and 
uncontaminated. 

And what does the seeker for high tragedy find? 
A long, flannel-suited, smooth-haired man, with an 
eyeglass, and a cigarette stuck in his mouth, helping 
a most attractive young woman to make a snow- 
man in the valley, the proceedings personally directed 
by another young man with much light laughter. He 
finds the deserted wife making quite a cult of de- 
serted wifedom, arrayed in a dress intended to con- 
vey the same, purple and black, with dull gold roses 
at her bosom. And the mother of the wicked daughter 
writing after this fashion: 

“What can one do with such situations but let them 
arrange themselves? What can one do to such people 
as Flip but be kind to them, as one is kind to kittens? 
She is like those fairies who do as much good as harm 
and all without moral or immoral purpose. Of course, 
I am pestered by people who have the impudence to 


188 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


thrust their opinions on me and give me their so-called 
sympathy. Some hold a brief for Flip and others for 
Grace, and a very few for Almirac. Do you know, my 
friend, that it is you I am sorry for. Flip has a touch 
of vampire in her nature, and she’ll draw blood out of 
you, and though you want experience, that is a hard 
way to come by it. Put on your armor and keep 
guard over yourself, the self I mean that is dormant 
in you. 

“The affair is sordid, but only sordid as might mud 
be on a butterfly’s wing. You and perhaps Almirac 
are the only real feeling people in this. Grace is a 
pose made more or less human. Personally I believe 
she is glad he has gone. She is a dreadful woman, 
whose mind is so thin it casts no shadow because it 
can give no light. She is now only to be seen at ex- 
clusive first-nights of those plays that are bound to 
be failures, and she lunches very obviously alone at 
Almirac’s old table at the Carlton. I could tell you 
who she will marry when the decree is made absolute, 
but I won’t. Isn’t ours a horrid slice of the world? 

“Flip, you know, is one of a long, long series of 
women who have made men madly in love with them 
all through history and have left a trail of broken 
hearts in a path of roses — a primrose path stained 
with blood. Sometimes such women are shot or 
stabbed in the back in more reasonable countries; 
sometimes they grow old and very much more respect- 
able than quite nice people, and then they publish 
very prudish Memoirs, spend their time, in fact, manu- 
facturing a special whitewash for their private sar- 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 189 

cophagi. They even deceive children, which is the 
most difficult thing in the world to do, into really caring 
for them. 

“ If Flip had a baby she’d be mad about it, really 
and truly mad about it, and hide her adoration jealously, 
but she would neglect it when it grew up. I know 
because that is her father in her. Children love him 
because he spares no pains to make them worship him, 
but when they do, he has done with them. 

“These people don’t belong to our world. They have 
some strain of elfin blood in them and live on the 
borderland, and just because of that, and because 
they are misunderstood, they should be tenderly treated. 
The moral code as we know it was made for you and me; 
they don’t know what we are talking about if we draw 
their attention to it. 

“We have all agreed to say she is in Egypt with 
Almirac, so your name has never come up. Take care. 
Bless you. 

“Augusta.” 

So Flip came to breakfast in a simple sixteen-guinea 
frock and her hair done demurely, and was so terrifically 
good that any wise man would have known she was up 
to mischief. With the air of an innocent child she 
exhibited the nails on her absurd shoes, just as if nails 
in shoes were a sign of sanctity. And one could almost 
hear her brushing her halo in the early morning. 

For the first time in his life Timothy heard a girl’s 
voice singing about the house, little odd French songs, 
all about nothing — about a Marquise and a fan, or a 


190 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


gentle lover and a piece of blue ribbon. And he would 
be greeted by laughter when he went to attend to his 
rock garden, and by noises of fear when he went to 
look after the cows. 

Almirac peppered the landscape day after day. 
Timothy would look up at the great island of rock 
between his garden and the Cirque, and there would 
be Almirac, apparently smoking to the mountains. 
He would turn a corner in the wood, and there would 
be an immaculate figure lounging against a tree; or 
pass the hotel in the evening and there in the semi- 
darkness would shine the white front of Almirac’s dress 
shirt and glow the end of his cigarette. On bypaths 
and tracks and by the roadside, by rocks and house 
doors lay the corpses of Almirac’s cigarettes. 

The aspect of the village was changed by the two 
figures of Flip and Almirac, for whereas he might be 
said to pose for a figure of languid elegance, Flip was 
certainly the embodiment of Spring. She ran down 
the hill paths with the faithful and adoring St.Bernard. 
If cigarette ends showed where he had been, wild- 
flowers strewed her path. Timothy would see her lying 
down in a field teasing the great dog with a cowslip, or 
racing up to the house with an armful of flowers like 
the figure in Botticelli's “ Spring." And she chattered 
like a magpie and sang and romped, and even acquired 
courage to stroke the nose of a calf, who nozzled at her 
and sucked her finger, to her terror and delight. 

If there could be such a contradiction, she would 
be Saint Flirt, for she reduced M. Coumely of the 
hotel to abject adoration and so obtained the finest 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 


191 


of chocolates, and Henri Gozast worshipped her from 
afar, and Victor Pic always brought her of his choicest 
flowers. And to the Cure she was “mon enfant.” 
But then the Cure was using the most delicate of his 
nets to catch her butterfly soul. 

The music of Spring played round them. It was as 
if some solitary little faun had been caught there and 
lost and played a wistful air about lambs and young 
buds and flowers, hoping his companions would come 
back and play with him. The Faun is a Springtime 
fantasy, who seems to vanish with the sweet-smelling 
hot breath of June. The Cure, walking in the moun- 
tains, heard everywhere the voice of God, and stooped 
sometimes to pluck a daisy and to wonder and to adore. 
And sometimes he stooped to pat a child’s hair and to 
wonder and to adore. And often when he was alone 
and kneeling at the altar, he would pray for guidance 
in the matter of Philippina that her merry, mocking 
soul might come into his net, for he saw in her an enor- 
mous unguided power for good and evil, and he loved 
her. She was at her best with him and would gather 
him flowers for the church and stand watching while he 
told her very simple stories of his people. Peter the 
dog would lie in the little nave, seeming to fill it, with 
his great eyes on Flip and his tail ready to wag if she 
gave him a look, and the spring sun would light the 
dusky corners and glow on the tarnished gold of the 
statues of the saints and show this dark-eyed girl who 
held men in the hollow of her small hand and the old 
priest in his rusty soutane, and if those who read the 
newspapers had passed that way and had been told, 


192 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“That is the notorious Miss Newberry, who ran away 
with Lord Almirac,” they would have answered, “You 
must be wrong; I see a child and an old priest doing 
the altar vases.” 

Clever as M. le Berade was with people, he did 
not understand Flip. He did not understand why 
she agreed so readily that Lord Almirac ought to go 
back to his wife, or why she was so anxious to stay with 
Timothy. “I want a rest,” she would say. And he 
who knew the need some people have for a quiet harbor 
out of the world’s traffic, was content to leave the affair 
at that. He had also a feeling that this charming 
butterfly who had flown into his village would fly away 
just as suddenly, and leave him with his dearest secret 
wish for Timothy. 

One day Almirac announced that some English 
people had arrived at the hotel, and Timothy said, 
“The season has begun. What a pity! Now we 
shan’t have our paths to ourselves.” But Flip said, 
“Oh? What kind of people? Pinch, I’ll have tea 
with you to-day and look at them.” 

“My dear child,” said Timothy, “it might be rather 
awkward.” 

“If Miss Swift, who is your sister, meets a few stupid 
tourists? I only want to stare at them.” 

Now Timothy had calculated that something of 
the sort must happen as soon as the tourist season be- 
gan, and he thought that he would have to deal with an 
indignant and hurt Flip and a cold-mannered Almirac, 
so he spoke out his mind. “You two,” he said, “had 
far better keep very low. People are beasts and they 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 


193 


might make it very unpleasant for Almirac in the hotel. 
Of course, the papers have had photographs of both 
of you and some one is sure to recognize you, so for 
goodness’ sake keep up here with me and don’t go rush- 
ing about with Almirac and upsetting everything.” 

“Pm not going to stand in a corner all my life,” 
she answered. 

“The situation, say what you like, is a little unusual,” 
said Timothy. “And I refuse to see my house marked 
with a cross in The Daily Photo as the spot where you 
are hiding. Don’t do it, my dear.” 

“Got to face the music one day,” said Almirac. 
“Better get over the shock.” 

“Don’t blame me,” said Timothy, and out he went 
to look after his garden, where there was so much to 
do at this season. 

At dejeuner he noticed that Flip had altered the man- 
ner of her hair and changed to one of her most dainty 
frocks. 

“So you are going to tea at the hotel,” he said. 

“If I am going to be stared at, I’d rather be stared 
at in nice clothes. Oh, don’t look so glum, Tim darling. 
I shan’t mind if they say nasty things, if only you 
are kind. And I do, I do, I do want to see some 
human beings again. And I do want to hear English 
chatter. Do I look nice?” 

Of course she looked nice, the prettiest thing im- 
aginable, and Timothy said, “You’ll do.” And she 
jumped up and went behind his chair and kissed the 
top of his head and said, “I’ll tell you all about it at 
dinner.” 


194 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“You are not to do that/’ said Timothy. 

“Won’t you want to hear?” 

“You are not to kiss me.” 

‘‘Don’t you like it?” 

“I wish you would remember,” said Timothy, “that 
you are a dreadful person with a past.” 

“You know I’m going to be frightfully good.’' 

“You can begin now, by coming down the rock 
garden and helping me to weed,” he answered. 

“That is simply mean,” said Flip. “I get one little 
excitement and you want me not to have it.” 

“Look here, Flip,” he said, suddenly serious, “you 
know this can’t go on for ever.” 

“Are you tired of me?” she asked. 

“And I wish you’d give up that horrible trick of 
twisting ribbon round and round when I try to talk 
seriously to you.” 

“Now you are in a bad temper,” said Flip joyfully. 

“ I am only serious. Y ou will have to marry Almirac. 
It isn’t fair.” 

“Who to?” said Flip. 

“To anybody, your mother, or — or anybody.” 

“I can’t marry him yet,” she answered. 

“But you can let him know that you will. He’s 
miserable.” 

“Poor old Pinch!” she sighed. “He knows I never 
shall. Would you miss me if I went away?” 

He thought suddenly of his house emptied of her 
laughter and her song. “I have plenty to do,” he 
answered 

“Are you quite, quite happy, Tim?” 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 


195 


“Go down to your tea and don’t bother me,” he 
said, rising. “I only hope the people in the hotel 
won’t guess who you are.” 

“Crosspatch!” said Flip, smiling. Then she called 
the dog and took her way daintily down the hill path. 
And Timothy did an hour’s unnecessary hard digging 
in his field. 

Later, when he had recovered from the feeling that 
had swept over him, he went to his rock garden and 
began to set in order those parts that had been broken 
away by the ravages of winter. He was picking over 
the damp moss bed where his best primulas grew, 
bending over them tenderly and clearing the ground 
of pieces of stick and dead leaves, when he heard voices, 
and turned to see Flip coming down the field with a 
stranger. 

“Mr. Varley insisted on seeing me home,” said Flip 
as she introduced the boy. 

“Very kind of you,” said Timothy ungraciously. 

“Wasn’t it!” said Flip, beaming on the boy who 
stood filling his eyes with her. 

“Jolly little flowers,” said Varley. 

“Are you staying here long?” asked Timothy. 

“I was going to be here a couple of days,” he an- 
swered, “but I think I shall stay on. I’m reading for 
an exam. Jolly place this.” And all the time his eyes 
followed Flip who was bending over the flowers in be- 
witching attitudes. 

“I suppose that takes up nearly all your time?” 
said Timothy. 

“Rather not!” he exclaimed. 


196 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


He was a nice, fresh English boy, with fair hair and 
brown eyes and good country clothes. And Timothy 
looked at him as if he were an enemy, a rake, an aw- 
ful species of cad, and he bit the stem of his pipe 
savagely. 

“May I show Mr. Varley the cows, Tim darling?” 
said Flip in her most innocent voice. 

Now if Timothy had spoken from his heart he would 

have said, “You may show Mr. Varley any thing 

in the whole — 4 — place, and then you may take him 
away and drown him.” Instead he spoke from the 
veneer of breeding and said, “Do you care to see the 
cows?” 

“Rather!” said the enthusiastic Varley. “Jolly 
things, cows.” 

At this moment Almirac appeared, having walked, 
by the careless swaying of him, only just across St. 
James’s Street. And he said, “Weedin’?” in the most 
natural manner. 

“Yes,” snapped Timothy. 

“We are going to look at the cows,” said Flip. 

“Can’t you find anything better to look at than 
cows?” said Almirac, and he said it so pointedly that 
the youth turned red. 

“We shan’t be long, Tim darling,” said Flip. And 
off they went. 

Timothy bent over his work again, and Almirac, 
having placed a silk handkerchief on a rock, sat down 
carefully. 

“Jolly little things, those flowers,” he said. 

“So the other idiot said,” murmured Timothy. 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 197 

“By the way,” drawled Almirac, “did you take 
that bet?” 

“What bet?” said Timothy, straightening his back. 

“Ten to one.” 

“Ten to one?” said Timothy. “I never made any 
bet.” 

“Pity,” said Almirac to the air. “I should have 
won.” 

“What are you driving at?” said Timothy. 

“I offered to bet you Flip would make you fall in 
love with her and she has.” 

For a moment Timothy did not speak. The truth 
hit him full in the face, and he knew it. For days his 
heart had been whispering the words to him, “I love 
her.” 

“IPs a lie,” said Timothy. 

“Rum thing,” said Almirac, ignoring him. “Can’t 
help it — nature. I’m sorry, old chap, because she’ll 
get over it, and now she knows she’ll get bored, and we 
shall move on. See her with that boy?” 

“I am fond of her,” said Timothy. 

“Don’t let her mess up your life,” said Almirac 
earnestly. “It doesn’t matter about me. I don’t 
count. You can’t help it, of course. But it’ll get very 
difficult for you, dear boy, deuced difficult.” 

“It may,” Timothy admitted. 

“She saw that boy,” said Almirac, “and bowled 
him out in about five minutes. Apologized for the 
room the dog took up to start with. Poor devil. I 
bet he’ll leave here in three days.” 

“What’s to be done?” said Timothy. 


198 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Nothin’,” said Almirac. “But if you go in and 
win, here’s luck. She told me you were a chap she 
could always make certain would be the same whatever 
she was. If I find she intends to stick to you, I’m off. 
Understand? I can say that because I’m fairly certain 
she won’t stick to you. I’m a bit of a limpet, you know, 
once I’m fixed on a spot where I intend to remain, there 
I’m glued. But if it’s you — well, there’s a difference. 
I’ll go now and take the boy back to his grandmother — 
his grandmother’s one of those irritatin’ tutors like an 
old woman, knows the names of everything, burstin’ 
with unnecessary information.” 

He folded his handkerchief carefully and strolled 
away, leaving Timothy reeling with the thing that 
had come to him. If he had ever had any doubt as to 
the purpose of his life it was dispelled now; his life was 
about this soulless, joyous child, this fascinating pixie 
who lived on love. He would give it to her heaped up. 
In his heart he dismissed Almirac, his generosity and 
his cynicism, his air of owning Flip and his air of dis- 
posing of her. She was for him. The mountains, the 
snows, and the streams and flowers were but a shrine 
for her. If she wearied of them, he had money in 
plenty. If she wished for the life of cities, cities should 
find them there. In the tempestuous hour he spent 
among the rocks and their wonderful confiding flowers 
he vowed his life to her, body and soul. His love 
should drown all pettiness in him and her. He would 
always be her lover, with a love so great that it should 
satisfy her. 

When the time came, they would be married some- 


SOLO FOR PAN PIPES 


199 


where and come back to his mountain home. Life 
spread out one long pastoral, long days of milk and 
honey, long hours of sunshine. And even as he thought 
and the thoughts surged round his heart like waves and 
seemed to drown him in ecstasy, the sun went behind 
clouds and the place grew dark and forbidding. 

He would speak to her that very night when they 
were alone. High-hearted he went up to the house 
to see that an especial dinner was provided and some 
good claret warmed. On the table in his study he 
found a note — 

“Mr. Varley insisted that Pinch and I should dine 
with him, and you too. Do come. We’ve gone on. 
I’m only teasing you. “FLIP. ,, 

Go down there to the hotel, with his joyous mantle 
of love on, never. He would wait for her until she came 
in, away from the atmosphere of the boy and Almirac 
and the prying eyes of waiters, and then — and then — 
His thoughts could go no further. He would not even 
go to meet her; better that she should come to him. 
The boy, poor devil, would see her to the door. Then 
he would take his lonely way to the hotel and out of 
her life. He ate his dinner and sat waiting, glowing 
with the thought of her. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE STORM 

I n those hours of waiting the hot flame that burned in 
Timothy wrought many changes in his mind. From 
a passionate tenderness so great that the tears started 
in his eyes, there came a great sensation of violence, of 
uncontrollable anger. The fire fed the primitive man in 
him, that old Adam men have had since unwritten time 
that has made them seize and carry off women at the 
saddle bow or over their shoulders, to take them to 
solitary caves or lonely castles and there placing them 
defy all men to take them away. He scorned Almirac’s 
spirit of toleration and of waiting; he scorned the bash- 
ful ardor of the young boy who was ready to go on 
bended knee. And when he thought of Flip the hot 
blood rushed to his face and his hands gripped the arms 
of his chair so that his knuckles stood out suddenly 
white. 

He would take her to himself and bar the door against 
the world. Did she dare look at another man, that man 
must first answer to him and then go for ever from her 
sight. As a man caught up on the high waves of religi- 
ous emotion will see and fight with evil spirits, so will a 
man burning in the flames of eager love see and fight 
the evil spirits of his mind. 

200 


THE STORM 


201 


He threw open the window and leaned out. The 
night was black, a sullen, unfriendly black, and no stars 
showed, and the mountains were hard against the sky. 
And it was hot and airless and there was a slight smell as 
of something burning. He knew there was a thunder- 
storm ready to break, and the knowledge wiped away 
the fever of his mind and caused him to become at once 
practical. They are fierce, these mountain storms, like 
great combats between evil powers and the mountains, 
and the more the fires crackle on the summits the more 
the bellowing thunder seems to come as a voice of giants 
fighting. And gray rain like the cloak of filthy witches 
obscures the combat and drowns the voice of the 
protesting rivers. 

One could imagine some old, old, quarrel between 
giants had blazed up again, and that one side used huge 
rocks to crash down on the other side, who used blue 
flames that tore hill-sides in pieces and split and burned 
old trees. And in the beginning an evil wind whispered 
messages of insult from one camp to another, until the 
full fury began, and then the wind would go mad and 
shriek over the din of the fight and yell with unearthly 
laughter in the hollows of the valley. Small wonder 
that peasants crossed themselves and women shivered in 
bed and children hid their faces and cried. 

When the wind came up like this it was dangerous 
walking on the hill paths from the village to his house, 
especially so for women, for the wind caught in their 
skirts and sometimes threw them over steep places. 
Anna Gozast had been killed that way. 

Timothy found his lantern and lit it and put on a thick 


202 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


coat and went out, stick in hand, to bring Flip home; 
and just as he opened the door a great gust of wind 
caught it and slammed it behind him, smashing the 
lantern and narrowly escaped smashing his hand with it. 
The wind caught his breath so that he gasped, and then 
the rain came down. Before he had taken ten steps his 
dog bounded out of the darkness and a flash of lightning 
showed him the figure of Flip struggling toward him. 
She put out her arms and fell toward him, gasping as he 
caught her, “ I’m so frightened.” 

When they were inside, the pathos of her struck him 
so that he became gentle from the fierce thing he had 
been, as fierce and passionate as the storm. In those 
few moments her delicate dress had been drenched, so 
that it clung about her and showed all the contours of 
her body, and her hat was a shapeless beaten pulp and 
her hair clogged with rain. And her face, all rain-wet, 
was like the face of a magnolia, and distressed with ter- 
ror. The St. Bernard shook himself and the water 
sprayed over them and on to the walls. 

“Go and change quickly,” said Timothy. “Then 
come down and dry your hair.” 

“I’m too frightened to go to my room,” she said. 
And then she clung to him, for a furious wind shook the 
house and a blast of thunder tore the air, so that her 
voice was drowned. 

“I’ll stand outside the door,” he said, gently leading 
her upstairs. “It is only a thunderstorm and it’ll be 
over in a minute. Hurry, my dear.” 

“I’m wet through.” 

“Then change everything, only be quick.” 


THE STORM 203 

“I’m not so frightened now,” she said. “You 
needn’t wait.” 

He went downstairs and made up the fire, and 
brought out some wine and cakes, and then saw to the 
fastenings of the windows and outer doors, and sat down 
and waited. Raindrops splashed down the chimney 
and hissed in the flames, and the wind moaned now like 
a trapped prisoner. 

She came in with a dressing-gown all fluffy with lace 
that billowed about her; her feet were bare and thrust 
into a pair of old slippers, and her hair was down and 
about her shoulders, hanging wet and limp and shining 
like ebony. And the sight of her caught at the breath in 
his throat and made him speechless for a moment. 

“You don’t mind, Tim dear?” she said. 

“Sit down and get warm,” he said roughly. 

As she sat on the rug by the fire a branch was flung 
furiously at one of the windows and the voice of the 
wind rose, howling dismally. 

“Why did you come back alone?” said Timothy. 

“Are you angry?” said Flip. 

“I want to know.” 

“The boy became silly, and I didn’t know there 
was going to be a storm, and Pinch wasn’t there.” 

“Why not?” 

“You do sound angry.” 

“I’m not in the least angry,” said Timothy. 

“Pinch left me alone with the boy because he said he 
had something he wanted to say.” She laughed, a little 
low laugh, at the thought. And Timothy bit his lip. 

“Did he say it?” he asked. 


204 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Men are funny,” said Flip. 

“Most humorous,” he said sarcastically. 

“It was awfully dark and he took my hand, Tim dear, 
and he began, and I laughed because a hair was tickling 
my nose.” 

“Poor devil.” 

“He has a hundred and fifty a year of his own, and 
expectations,” she said laughing. “I did want to see 
his face, but it was too dark. And then he tried to kiss 
me.” 

A crash of thunder drowned Timothy’s exclamation. 

“Tim dear, you look at me so hard, don’t you like 
me with my hair down?” 

She looked like a girl of fifteen, and she put her face 
up and smiled at him, and he took a step forward and 
then changed his mind and went to the table and poured 
out some wine and handed it to her. 

“You have got a shaking hand,” she said. “See, 
you’ve spilt some on my foot.” 

He looked down and saw a drop of wine blazing like a 
ruby in the firelight on the smallest, whitest of feet, and 
he longed to kneel down and drink it. And the longing 
overcame him so that he knelt down and kissed her bare 
foot, and for a moment the world swung in dizzy space 
and her head touched his shoulder and her hair was 
across his eyes. 

He got up slowly and stood away from her, and their 
eyes met and melted into each other. 

“I hate you,” he said thickly. “You’re a devil. 
You tempt men beyond all bounds. I can’t bear it.” 

In the silence that followed, the storm surged round 


THE STORM 


205 


the house and the trees outside kept up a roaring con- 
versation, and leaves and sticks cracked suddenly 
against the shutters. 

“You love me,” she whispered. 

“ I don’t know. You are the type of woman I detest. 
A flirt, a breaker of hearts, with no depth and no heart 
of your own.” 

“Tim darling!” 

“You impose yourself on me with your helplessness, 
and then you expect me to be a sort of plaster saint. 
It isn’t fair.” 

“I love you better than anyone else,” she said in a 
pleading voice. “There isn’t any harm in your kissing 
me. Kiss me.” 

He trembled as she spoke. “What about Almirac? 
What about the others? Don’t move, or I shall hurt 
you. Are kisses nothing to you? When I went away 
because I was ill, you could have stopped me by holding 
up your finger. Did you? I went away hating women. 
I cured myself of you in three years. I was free of all 
thought of women for a whole year after that, and now 
you come back into my life and — and I’m mad about 
you. It wasn’t love the first time; I was too young. 
I don’t know that it is now. It is as much hate as love. 
If I let myself go, what should I suffer afterward? 
Almirac is right, you would get tired of me and find a 
new sensation.” 

All the time she had been looking at him with half- 
frightened eyes, just as she had looked at him when she 
came in from the storm, and the blood had left her face 
and it was like a magnolia set in ebony again. 


206 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“Tim,” she said, “are you quite kind?” 

“Kind?” he cried. “Go to bed, for heaven’s sake, 
and leave me.” 

“I can’t help myself,” she said, looking at the fire 
now. “I’m me. I suppose I am very wicked, but I 
always want to be loved. You are the best man I have 
ever met, and I could never make you happy. I don’t 
think I was supposed to make people happy, and yet 
they love me. I can’t help wanting to be loved. I 
don’t want to hurt you, Tim; I don’t really. Will you 
believe it?” 

“Go to bed,” he said, “or I think I shall kill you.” 

“I’m not in love with Pinch,” she said slowly. Then 
she raised her face to his. “I’ll go away with you if 
you’ll marry me,” she said. “Anywhere where there 
aren’t any people. I’ll learn to be good if you will 
teach me. I’ll try awfully hard, dear, I really will. 
Only I’m never really certain of myself. I did make 
that boy fall in love with me on purpose, and I did make 
him hold my hand. It’s awful, isn’t it? But if you’ll 
teach me, I’ll try, Tim dear. I’m rather frightened of 
myself. I don’t know what I might do.” 

He longed to hold her in his arms and knew he must 
steel himself against it, and with his teeth set he turned 
away from her and poured out a glass of wine and drank 
it off in a gulp. The house quivered in the storm and 
the wind mocked at them in the room as if evil spirits 
raced round the house and fought for entry. 

Then he turned again and she stood up, her head a 
little back, her arms limp at her sides. He was breath- 
ing heavily, like a man who has run far, and his eyes were 


THE STORM 


207 


fastened on her, while hers were nearly closed. And as 
he stepped toward her with a moan on his lips there 
came a furious battering upon the door. His eyes 
cleared and he brushed past her, but she swayed and 
fell into his arms, and then, the world lost to him, he 
crushed her to him and kissed her on the mouth. She 
lay for a second against him, like a dead thing. A shiver 
ran through her body and it seemed to race through his 
blood. Then the battering began again. 

With a sigh like a man coming out of a dream, he 
put her away from him and went to the door, opened it 
and went into the passage. Holding the front door 
firmly, so that the force of the wind should not tear it 
open, he undid the fastenings and opened the door. A 
yell of wind came through the door and a hustling eddy 
of leaves. Almirac stood there with a sodden end of a 
cigarette hanging from a corner of his mouth. He 
came in without a word, for he had no breath left, threw 
his mackintosh into a corner and went into the room. 

He stood for a moment looking from Flip to Timothy, 
removed the wet cigarette end from his mouth and threw 
it into the fire. “Beastly night,” he said. “Got any 
brandy, Swift ?” 

At once Flip rattled away. “Tim has everything, 
haven’t you, Tim? Do give poor Pinch some brandy. 
Look at your shirt. Did you think I was lost?” 

“I did rather,” he said. “Dress-clothes — rotten 
things in a storm. Lightnin’ be George, never saw any- 
thin’ like it. I thought I’d nip up here to see if you were 
safe. Here’s luck.” 

He swallowed his brandy. “Asked the young feller 


208 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


if he’d seen you home, but he was drunk or somethin’, 
just glared at me. Glared, dear boy, as if I’d trodden 
on his foot.” 

“ You’d better change those things,” said Timothy. 

“Good idea. I’ll put up with you to-night, if you 
don’t mind — any old chair and a rug, what? No good 
goin’ through that riot outside again. Awful night. 
I’ll have another peg to keep the cold out.” 

“You do look funny,” said Flip. “Do look at your 
hair; it’s all over the place. 

“Yours ain’t so very neat,” said Almirac, “though it 
looks stunnin’.” 

“I’ll go to bed now,” said she. “I got wet through 
too, as you can see. Good night, Pinch dear. Good 
night, Tim.” And she went quickly out of the room. 

“Did you come here to see if she was safe?” said 
Timothy. 

“Yes,” drawled Almirac, looking him full in the face. 
“Exactly.” 

“She is perfectly — safe,” said Timothy. 

“Glad to hear it, dear old feller, glad. Encore un 
cognac, as they say. I’m beastly chilly.” 

“I have to leave here for a couple of days in the morn- 
ing,” said Timothy. 

“Well, bon voyage, as they say. I think I’ll get out 
of these soppy things now.” 

The wind had dropped as suddenly as it had risen, 
and when Almirac was changing in Timothy’s bedroom, 
Timothy opened the front door again and looked out. 
In a flood of starlight the mountains showed white, 
calm, serene against a cloudless sky. 


CHAPTER XX 


TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED 

W HEN Flip came down the next morning she 
found Almirac devouring a large breakfast, a 
most unusual thing for him and she looked round the 
room for the dog. 

“ Swift has gone off for a couple of days,” said 
Almirac. 

“ Rather sudden,” said Flip. 

“Coffee?” said Almirac pleasantly. 

She sat down opposite to him, with her elbows on the 
table, and said sharply, “ Pinch, why did you come here 
last night?” 

“Just for a lark,” he answered. 

“I didn’t think you were given to walking two miles 
in a thunderstorm for a lark,” she said. 

£ ‘B ored at the hotel,” he answered, looking blank at her. 
“And has Tim left at five o’clock in the morning for 
a lark?” she said. 

“Couldn’t tell you,” said Almirac. 

“I can tell you,” said Flip, with a rising color. 
“You came here to spy on me.” 

“Don’t get dramatic,” sighed Almirac. “I was 
only just mouchin’ about, and I drifted in, dear girl, 
drifted in on the chance.” 

“I hate you,” she said savagely. 

209 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


210 

“ Right 0 !” he said. “ Drink your coffee.” 

Her hand went to the cup swiftly as if she might have 
thrown the coffee in his face, and then, as suddenly, she 
put her head down and began to cry. 

“Oh, damn!” said Almirac. “I say, don’t blub; 
it’s all right. I understand, don’t you know.” 

“But I do love him,” she sobbed. “Pinch, dear, I 
really and truly do, and he loves me, and I’m awfully 
sorry for you.” 

“And for the boy at the hotel ” 

Up came her head quickly. “That’s mean,” she said. 
“I couldn’t help that. Am I always to be followed 
about by you and watched and scolded if I have a little 
fun?” 

“Fun!” said Almirac. 

“You know what I mean. If silly boys choose to 
fall in love with me, can I help it?” 

“Swift isn’t a boy.” 

“And you know that’s different.” 

“Look here,” said Almirac, “this is a very difficult 
position, ain’t it? Here am I and here are you, and 
by the ordinary rules we oughtn’t to be here. Now, 
take old Swift — he’s a man, he can’t stand it; it isn’t 
the game, dear girl, it isn’t the game. He’ll get hurt, 
and you can hurt, you know — not that I say you always 
do it on purpose, but a man’s a man. I haven’t got the 
words, but you know what I mean.” 

“Don’t you think,” she said, “that Tim can look 
after himself?” 

“I don’t think any man can look after himself when 
there’s a woman lookin’ after him.” 


TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED 211 

“You are simply inhuman,” she said. 

“Wrong, dear girl, wrong,” said Almirac, lighting 
a cigarette. “It’s because I’m so deuced human that 
I’m here.” 

“If you interfere ” 

“Look here,” said Almirac, “in the words of Society, 
we’ve come a mucker. We’ve got to live our own lives 
until we wear down the rotten look of the thing. It 
happens so often that the thing has conventions of its 
own, and we’ve got to stick to ’em. We don’t want to 
mess up Swift’s life, do we? I’ve let you have a long 
rope and you’ve pulled it up now as far as it’ll go. If 
you were a bee you could go round from flower to flower, 
as the chaps say, but you’re not; you’re an immoral 
little animal who wants clothes and food and a roof 
over you, and you’ve got a couple of hundred from your 
mother. I’ve got to pay the rest, and I want to.” 

“I’m perfectly happy here,” she said. 

“Well, I ain’t, and that’s the long and the short 
of it.” 

“Am I very bad?” said Flip, suddenly melting. 

Almirac got up and stood with his hands in his trous- 
ers pockets, leaning slightly forward. He looked 
neither knight nor lover; he looked, if anything, a little 
comic, except that his expression was as serious as an 
eyeglass would allow it to be. “Can you understand 
you are everything in the world to me?” he said. “I’m 
not a feller for talkin’ as a rule, but I’ve got to get this 
off my chest somehow. I may be dumb, but I’m not 
blind. That chap kissed you last night. I had an 
idea somethin’ was goin’ to happen and that’s why I 


212 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


dropped in. It’s a trifle more than a chap can bear. I 
want you to be happy and I’ll do my level best to make 
you, but I want a corner for myself, old girl — just a 
crumb or two now and again, you know. It sounds 
old-fashioned, but I say, if you love this other feller, 
then leave him. You’d never make him happy. If 
he’s crazy about you, well, so am I, and that’s a fact. 
I sit about and think about you. Now I’ll slope off 
and leave you to think it over. So long.” 

Without paying any attention to her as she sat 
watching him, he lounged out of the room, lighting 
another cigarette as he went. 

He had impressed her. She sat for a long time trying 
to work out the problem of her life, and she felt, as 
children feel, a grievance that she could not be left 
alone to be happy in her own way. But at the same 
time a vista of years came into her thoughts, and she 
knew that unless she pulled up now she would flutter 
along from man to man until she died. And the thought 
sickened her. A footstep made her look up, and she 
saw the Cure on the veranda. 

He saw her through the open window and greeted 
her affectionately with “Bon jour, mon enfant.” 

Her face immediately lit up at the sight of the old 
man, as it lit up for every man. 

“I will come out,” she said, “and you shall talk to 
me as I am very sad.” 

He patted her hand affectionately and said, “So 
the little one is sad, and Sir Swift is away — eh? And 
life is very hard — eh?” 

“What am I to do?” she asked simply. 


TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED 213 


“The play part is over/’ he said gently, “and what 
was a game — eh — has become all at once a situation.’’ 

“Am I to blame?” 

“My dear child,” said the Cure, “I have thought 
over this affair very, very often. It is new to me. I 
have prayed for light. If you were a Catholic it would 
be so very simple. I should have given you into the 
charge of some good Sisters for a while, and then in 
time the good God would have arranged your life for 
you. So I must take what you would call, I think, 
your cricket code, your fair play. First, I shall say 
you know those notices in your country, ‘Trespassers 
will be prosecuted,’ and I shall say this to you, for you 
have arrived in a strange country and travelled far, 
and behold you come to this notice. You cannot break 
the laws, my dear child, and if you try, they will break 
you. And one of the laws is this: you shall not hurt 
your friend.” 

“I love him,” she said. 

“So you see what I mean,” he answered. “Yes, 
it is dear Sir Swift. I have been watching. And it 
has come now, and so you must go.” 

“Where can I go?” she cried. 

The Cure took a pinch of snuff before he answered. 
“God has given you a great charm and I think you 
have not used it well — eh? You say always to men 
and women and children and animals, ‘You shall love 
me,’ and then you trample with your small feet on their 
hearts and go away laughing. My child, if only you 
could go back to your home and give your charm to the 
poor and to those no one loves — eh?” 


214 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“This is very ideal,” said Flip, “but ideals are 
impossible.” 

“God has revealed to us that ideals are the only 
realities.” 

“I don’t believe in God.” 

The Cure smiled, as if his face caught a gleam from 
the Courts of Heaven. “ God believes in you,” he said. 
“Look at what is before us, the mountains, the clear 
sky, the green fields and little flowers; it is a fringe of 
His garment. Would you go to some very dear women 
I know and live quietly with them for a little while? 
They would not talk of religion to you; they are Sisters, 
and they are very good and simple, like these flowers, 
and they teach children. When I have been to see 
them I come away feeling at peace with the world. 
You hear children’s voices and the voices of the Sisters 
who mother them, and it is all white. Will you go?” 

“Monsieur le Berade,” she said impatiently, “do 
you realize what lam? I am a woman who has broken 
the moral code: who has gone away with another 
woman’s husband, who has been away with him for 
weeks — and you talk to me of little children as if I 
were a child. I will do my best to keep to my man, 
though I know now I do not care for him. I will not 
hurt Sir Swift, as you call him, and will do my best not 
to hurt poor old Pinch — Lord Almirac. Is that 
enough?” 

The Cure looked at her and sighed. “I only ask you 
to ask your heart; I can do no more, my child. And 
to think of the day when all secrets shall be revealed. 
And to pray for a belief in Heaven.” 


TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED 215 

“ Why do you try to make me miserable?” she asked. 

“My child, I think it is good that you should know 
what you are doing. You are slipping away even 
from your own loose code. You are killing your soul 
so that it cannot speak to you. You are killing the 
soul of that man with whom you have run away. Go 
back, child, go back, and face your world as a penitent; 
go back and glory in it that you shall be scorned and 
thought a fool, as you have returned to the paths of 
goodness. Leave these men and go to your mother 
or to some kind woman and start again. It will be 
hard at first, but God helps those who are trying to 
come to Him.” 

“And the man?” she said angrily. 

“The man has a wife,” said the Cure. 

“She is divorcing him.” 

Suddenly the Cure clasped his hands and bent his 
head. “Oh, God forgive me, I am very old,” he said. 

“I am sorry,” said Flip, rising and speaking very 
coldly. “But I do not think you understand the way 
in which we live.” 

The Cure rose to a weary old figure in his shabby 
clothes, and the light from an inner fire shone from 
his eyes. “If I were not so old,” he said, “I would 
go into your Society and I would shatter its inanities 
and blasphemies and foul living, as God shattered 
the evil cities. You have been brought up in a pool 
of filth, my child, and you are a flower in the sight of 
God. You have breathed the poison of loose living 
and loose thinking and it has polluted you. May He 
bless and guard you and lead you to the light.” 


216 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


She faced him with her hands clenched and her eyes 
blazing. “You may go,” she said. 

“Oh, my child!” he said, in a broken voice. Then, 
finding his hat and old umbrella, he went slowly 
away. 

Flip watched him out of sight — a little, dry-eyed, 
passionate figure. Her tongue was dry and her hands 
hot, and she felt as if she had been whipped. And 
when he had gone she went into the house and sat 
thinking. “I wish I was dead,” she kept saying. 
“No one wants me; I wish I was dead.” 

Dejeuner was brought in, and she ate mechanically. 
Her mind was set now on doing some great thing. The 
words of Almirac, the words of the old priest had made 
her mad with desire to show them she could do some 
great thing. To sacrifice herself, she thought, would 
be a fine, noble action: to take herself away quietly 
out of their lives. Of what use was she to them, or to 
anybody? And as she looked out of the window at the 
great, calm mountains, it seemed the snow spoke to her. 
“I will give you rest and peace,” it said. “ I will soothe 
you to sleep. You will go so quietly to sleep in my 
white arms, and it will be warm and you will feel 
nothing, and you shall live with me always up here, 
away from the world.” 

She went once round the house, but in a dazed way, 
touching things listlessly, her mind made up. 

At four o’clock she went out, and up the hill to the 
track at the top that wound over the mountains and 
into the snow. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE SNOW 

'X'lMOTHY had ridden down to Pierrefitte in a des- 
* perate frame of mind, not knowing what he was 
going to do. The conflict between honor and desire 
waged their ancient war in him all that morning as they 
had during the night. He had half an idea of leaving 
everything to the Cure, of going to England, and again 
plunging himself in the world he had once known. But 
the feel of her arms was round him and her kiss stayed 
on his lips. 

By twelve o’clock he found himself at Argeles and 
very hungry, having forgotten to eat anything in the 
morning, and going into the hotel he sat down and 
waited for his dejeuner to be served. At the next 
table to him sat a round, comfortable man of about 
forty-five, who smiled at Timothy as soon as he 
saw him. 

“ Wonderful good food here,” said the stranger. 

“I believe so,” Timothy answered. 

“ Nothing like good food,” said the comfortable 
man. 

“So they say.” 

“Does a man good to live in a place like this,” said 
the stranger, leaning back in his chair the better to talk 
to Timothy. 


217 


218 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“This is my first holiday for twenty years,” said the 
stranger. 

“Indeed!” said Timothy. (How wonderful her eyes 
were, how wonderful her lips were.) 

“Twenty years,” said the stranger. “It’s a long 
time.” 

“It is,” Timothy answered. (And her hands were 
like lilies. And there was Almirac to think of.) 

“Twenty years and never a week off. Hard work, 
sir.” 

“Marvellous,” said Timothy. (Marvellous lights 
in her hair, marvellous shadows in her eyes.) 

“Not that I’m afraid of a bit of work, sir, not me. 
I’m all for it, as the saying is. Ah, here come the 
flipperty bits, as I call these hors d’oeuvre — kickshaws. 
Now I can eat.” 

“Thank God!” said Timothy aloud. 

The stranger turned red. “I beg your pardon,” 
he said icily. 

Timothy saw his mistake, smiled, and said, “Merely 
a form of grace.” 

“Oh, I see,” said the stranger affably. “Don’t 
mind my butting in, but it’s a relief to talk to a man. 
I’m a grocer by trade.” 

“Indeed,” said Timothy. (Should he leave her to 
Almirac — would it be fair?) 

“I should say I was a grocer — ha! ha!” 

“Was a grocer,” said Timothy politely. 

“Ever heard the story of the rich uncle from Aus- 
tralia?” asked the stranger, chuckling. 

“I don’t think so,” said Timothy. 


THE SNOW 


219 


“Well, it’s a fact. You know, sir, father’s brother 
emigrates, father dies, son goes into a shop — and a very 
small business when I started — rich but unheard-of 
uncle pops off — and — well, sir, I come into a bit. I’m 
limited now, sir, Castle & Co., Ltd.” 

“Most fortunate.” (Shall I go back and claim her 
and take her away, and tell her how I love her?) 

“See this, sir?” said the happy, fat man, passing a 
piece of rough gold across the table, “ a nugget, the first 
he struck before he struck the lot. A mascot — that’s 
what I call it. Very good, this way of messing hot egg 
about, isn’t it?” 

Timothy answered both observations with the word 
“Remarkable.” Nothing, however, daunted the com- 
municative grocer, and his naive and lively conversation 
presently forced Timothy to come out of his dreams and 
to take an intelligent interest in the man. He inquired 
what had made Mr. Castle come to such a quiet spot as 
Argeles — which, moreover, he pronounced Ah Jellies — 
and Mr. Castle rapturously explained. 

“A bit of sentiment, sir, that’s what did it. When I 
was a boy I used to do the rounds, leaving our small goods 
at back doors and what not. Well, sir, one day a lady 
called me in for a Christmas box, and I was struck dumb 
by a picture. I’d never seen a picture of snow moun- 
tains before, sir, never, and I stood there like a stuck pig 
until she asked me what I thought of it. I said, 
‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘Ma’am, I’m going there if it takes 
me a hundred years.’ And when I was twenty she 
sent for me. ‘I’m dying,’ she said, ‘and I want to 
know if your mind’s still set on going to Argeles?’ I 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


£20 

told her it was, and I’d never forgotten my word. And 
would you believe it, sir, she left me twenty pounds and 
that picture, and I am here, though it took me another 
twenty years to do it.” 

“ Faithful to an idea,” said Timothy, and his mind 
went back to Flip. 

“My motto has always been, ‘Think what you want 
to do and then do it,’ ” said the grocer. “And I’ve done 
it, and, what’s more, sir, I’m not disappointed. I like 
this spot. I don’t care for the wine, but the biscuits are 
English, and the food’s fine. And the air! Do you 
know this part?” 

After lunch, for the reason that he longed to tell 
some one, that the grocer was such a cheery, straight- 
forward little man and a stranger, Timothy told him 
the situation he was in. He put it that he had to advise 
the man who was wishing to be faithful to his friend and 
yet was in love with the woman. He gave no names. 

“You wouldn’t think I’d thought much about love, 
would you now?” said the grocer. “But I have. I’ve 
thought a lot about it, one way and another, I’ve been 
in and out of love twenty and more times and liked it 
every time. I didn’t fall in love, but I found I just 
wanted one woman more than I can say. I don’t know 
if I asked her to marry me; I know I just married her 
and we spent exactly eleven months in Heaven, and 
then Kitty, my daughter, came, and she died. If I 
were your friend, sir, and I wanted that woman, I’d just 
go and take her. You can only do those things once in 
a lifetime. I’d go straight to the lady and I’d say, 
‘This is a question for me and you, and only for me and 


THE SNOW 


221 


you/ and I’d take her straight away and have done 
with it. And he might have years of Heaven, instead of 
only eleven months.” 

“I think you are right,” said Timothy. 

“Are you going to do it?” said the little grocer 
quietly. 

“Me!” said Timothy, feeling the blood rush to his 
face. 

“A man doesn’t tell a story like that as you told it, 
sir, not unless it’s about himself. You’d make a bad 
actor, sir. Why, you had the lady, if I may put it that 
way, sitting in your eyes. I haven’t served people over 
a counter for thirty years without knowing something 
about human nature.” 

“I’m going now,” said Timothy, holding out his 
hand. “I don’t know what made me tell you ” 

“I do,” said the grocer. “That’s the fruit of my 
eleven months in Heaven. Good luck to you, sir, 
proud to have met you.” 

And as Timothy left the place he knew that Mr. 
Castle had become one of those real people in the blurred 
picture of life who stood out like rocks, like his uncle 
Oliver, like Augusta Newberry. 

As he rode upward slowly, the dog running ahead, he 
noticed that the mountains were covered with clouds 
and that the sky was darkening. He knew by weather- 
wise experience that it was going to snow, and he 
urged on his mare, since he had no wish to ride through 
a snowstorm in the dark. At Gedre it was snowing 
heavily, coming down the valley in great gusts and ed- 
dies. Already the road was white and the snow was 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


222 

drifting into corners under the rocks. It was nearly 
seven when he reached Gavarnie, now blotted out under 
the soft, hurrying flakes, and so engrossed was he in his 
thoughts of Flip and of the joy that was to be his he 
never noticed anything unusual until he came across 
Henri Gozast, the guide, coming from his house with 
staff, rope and lantern. 

“What has happened?” Timothy called. 

“Ah! Monsieur,” said Henri, “do you bring the 
little lady?” 

“What little lady?” said Timothy, and all at once 
his heart began to beat wildly and an awful fear made 
him numb. 

“ Mon Dieu , that is the last hope,” said the guide. 

Timothy leapt from his mare and stood in the whirling 
snow facing the man. His voice came with difficulty. 
“Quick, tell me, where is she? What has happened?” 

They were close by his house, and the guide began 
to walk there with Timothy, talking as he went. 

“Your friend Milor Almirac went at five o’clock to 
your house and could not find the lady. And later 
came Pere Berade, and they could not find her; and 
they went up the hill to seek for her, and it began to 
snow. Milor ran down to the village, and no one had 
seen her go that way, and the snow has covered all 
traces. She will be lost, unless she is in the hotel at 
the Cirque. Victor Pic has gone to the hotel below 
to telephone to find out.” 

At the door of his house Timothy found the Cure, 
three guides, Almirac, and the young man from the 
hotel. They were discussing a plan of action and wait- 


THE SNOW 


223 


ing for news from Victor. Two guides had lanterns 
and were equipped with rope. 

“ Swift,” said Almirac, “you’ve heard?” 

“Yes,” said Timothy shortly. “If she isn’t at the 
hotel by the Cirque, she must have wandered up here 
behind the house on the Spanish track, or else across 
on the other side. When Victor comes we shall be 
able to arrange what to do.” 

“Ghastly business, this waiting,” said the young 
man. 

The snow whirled round them and could only be 
seen in the lantern-light. It came down like a dance 
of ghosts, so noiseless, so threatening. The guides 
spoke in whispers. The Cure prayed silently. Almirac 
walked up and down. Round each man a cloud of 
breath hovered. 

Timothy went into the house and changed into his 
big climbing-boots, put brandy into a flask, and got 
his ice-axe out of its case. Then Victor Pic came. 

“She is not there. They have not seen her.” 

Instantly every man was alert. 

“I go with Henri,” said Timothy, “up the road 
to the Port d’Espagne. We take the dog. It is the 
most likely way for her to have gone. You, Jacques, 
will go with Lord Almirac across the river and search 
that side. You, Charles, will take this young gentle- 
man through the lower part of the valley, while we 
take the upper track. I think Paul Benoit had better 
go with you and Jacques, Almirac.” 

“I am coming with you,” said Almirac. 

“Very well, then Paul and Jacques take the left 


224 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


bank and the wood across the river. Take brandy, 
all of you. Monsieur de Berade, will you stay here 
and arrange for our home-coming?” 

“ God go with you,” said the priest. 

At first they could hear voices calling, “This way,” 
“Take care,” but these sounds were soon swallowed up 
by the snow and the wind. 

First, Henri went with a lantern, then Almirac and 
then Timothy, but first of all, Peter the St. Bernard 
went. They toiled up without speaking, every man 
white with snow, the steel points of their sticks ringing 
now on rock, now sunk deep in a drift. Their going 
was slow, as Henri went cautiously in the darkness, and 
stopped once quite at fault and listened for the sound 
of water to guide him. Then Timothy called “Peter!” 
and a bark came from ahead. 

After an hour of climbing they came to a place 
where the track was completely obliterated and swept 
away by the fall of a huge piece of rock, and they were 
forced to rope up and go with the uttermost caution. 
When they had reached a place of comparative safety, 
again Henri stopped. “Monsieur,” he said, “she 
could not have come further than this, I think. There 
should be a long snow slope not far away, which is the 
part of that avalanche that broke away the road. It 
is very dangerous there now, with this fresh snow. 
Our weight is too much. I shall go on alone.” 

They were about to discuss this when Peter appeared 
in the lantern-light. He carried a white woolen glove 
in his mouth and brought it to Timothy. In the 
circle of light the three men looked silently at that 


THE SNOW 


225 


little glove. Almirac turned away, and Timothy looked 
at Henri with his face agonized and his lips trembling. 
“She may be quite safe,” said Henri. “I see we 
must trust to the dog.” 

Feeling every step of the way, they went slowly 
on, passing the place where the dog had pawed the 
ground and found the glove. Then Almirac said to 
Timothy, “I’m jolly nearly done, dear boy, out of 
trainin’, damn cigarettes. Go on without me.” 

At that moment Henri’s lantern showed a great pile 
of snow and rock straight before them. “This is the 
place,” he said. “If she went further, she must have 
meant — ” 

“Quiet!” said Timothy. 

Then far ahead the dog barked loudly and continued 
to bark. 

“Good God, he’s found her!” cried Timothy. 

Out of the darkness came the insistent barking. 

“We must cross this,” said Henri. “One at a time. 
I will go first, and you shall pay out rope for me until 
I whistle. I shall fix the rope firmly. Then you must 
follow. After Monsieur Swift is across I will come 
back for you, Milor. I must do that as you are not 
used to this. Get a firm place and brace yourself well 
in case I fall. Hold the rope so, and if I fall, do not 
move at first. I shall whistle if I am all right, if not, one 
of you must haul on the rope, while the other puts all 
his weight on the end. I must take the lantern.” 

For a moment they saw the lantern and then it 
vanished and they were in darkness. Out of the dark- 
ness came the dog’s insistent barking. 


226 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


The rope ran slowly out of Timothy’s hands as he 
paid it out. It would go and stop and go and stop, 
until the time since Henri left them seemed an eternity. 
Neither of the men spoke. They could not see one 
another. Almirac, with his back against a rock, 
stood with set lips, his hands bitterly cold, his face 
streaming with sweat. 

Then came a sharp, short whistle, and the rope 
ceased to run from Timothy’s hands. He pulled it 
and found it taut, and then, without a word, he walked 
into the darkness, holding the rope and stooping to 
find Henri’s track. As he crossed the slope and was, 
as far as he knew, on top of it, he heard a piece of rock 
part from the snow below him and begin to roll down, 
and finally he heard it crash against some rock far below; 
at the same time the snow began to slither away from 
his feet. Testing every step with his axe, and moving 
in Henri’s tracks, he saw suddenly the lantern about 
five feet below him and Henri standing there by it. 

“The snow is moving,” said Henri. 

Timothy whistled. 

“No, no. Mon Dieu , it is too late! He will start. 
And no one can cross that place now; if they do, it 
will all move.” 

Timothy felt the rope tug a little in his hand. Almirac 
had started. Henri at once gave orders. “If the mass 
comes down it will smash him to pieces; it may kill us 
also. If he comes quickly he may possibly be in time. 
I will go and show him a light as near as I can. You 
are to stay here.” 

In the whirling snow and darkness, and with the 


THE SNOW 


227 


immediate danger of death before him, Timothy felt 
like a giant of strength. And all the time the dog 
barked loudly, not far away. To be so near to Flip 
and yet to be burdened with the chance of accident 
seemed a horrible, purposeless fate. More rocks fell 
and went crashing below. He could see Henri holding 
his lantern high up. Then Almirac appeared in the 
light, crawling over the snow and rocks. There was 
one appalling cry from Henri, the lantern waved, and 
then Timothy saw the mass of snow slowly move. 
Then the lantern went out in the crash that followed, 
and a tremendous sudden strain was put on the rope. 

In the dark, and with the grinding of rocks in his 
ears and the thunder of snow falling below him, Timothy 
braced all his strength to holding himself firm. The 
awful strain made his shoulders seem like lead, blood 
started from his finger-nails, and sweat poured off him. 
The rope swung round, the strain ceased and then 
slacked. He heard Henri’s voice: “ Stand firm.” 

Hours seemed to pass as he stood there, his eyes 
straining to pierce the darkness and the dancing 
curtain of snow, and at last Henri appeared, a black 
mass near him, with Almirac across his shoulders. 

“He is not dead,” said Henri. “He was swept 
aside, thank God, but a rock hit him.” 

“And you?” 

“I cannot tell. I bleed somewhere. I think his 
arm is broken. When I went to him he was moaning.” 

“We must get to her.” 

“We must wait for light,” said Henri. 

“I cannot wait.” 


228 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“We must wait.” 

“I have candles,” said Timothy. “We will leave 
him in a safe place here, under these rocks.” 

Between them they lifted Almirac’s unconscious 
form and laid him under the rocks, and then Timothy 
lit a candle in the shelter of the guide’s coat and they 
saw that Almirac’s arm was twisted and broken and 
his face cut and pouring blood. Also his coat was torn 
into ribbons, and on the broken arm not a vestige of 
coat or shirt was left. The guide took off his coat and 
put it over him and they managed to pour some brandy 
between his teeth. And all the time the incessant 
barking went on. 

They left Almirac and followed the track, which 
was easier now, and came suddenly upon Peter, who 
rushed at them and pawed furiously in the snow. It 
was not snowing so fast now and the wind had dropped, 
but the darkness could be felt and they could see nothing. 

“Flip!” cried Timothy, but no answer came. 

The dog pulled at his coat and drew him to the edge 
of the track. 

“She has fallen here,” said Timothy. “I must go 
down. How can we get a light?” 

“We cannot get a light.” 

“Can you hold me on the rope?” said Timothy. 

“I think not,” said the guide. “I am not certain. 
I am covered with bruises. We must wait for the 
dawn.” 

“She will die of cold.” 

“Yes,” said Henri, “she may die of cold. We must 
do something.” 


THE SNOW 


229 


“She may be dead,” said Timothy. 

“She is dead,” said the guide. “She cannot have 
lived through this.” 

They spoke in low tones, as if the tragedy had 
hushed them. Timothy had no sensations so strong 
as those of a suppressed excitement. Rather than res- 
cuing the woman he loved, he felt that he was fighting 
Nature. He felt no sense of fatigue, but a sense of 
being uplifted for the fight, and he felt certain that 
Flip was not dead. As they stood wondering what to 
do, the wind died away and the snow began to cease 
falling. In five minutes it had stopped. It was as if 
something had died supernaturally, quietly. 

Timothy had two candles in his pocket, and was now 
able to light one. As the quivering flame burned in 
the still air it seemed to make the darkness more awful. 
He saw Henri sitting on the snow behind him, very 
white and drawn in the face and his hand on his left side. 

“I think I have broken a rib,” said the guide. “I 
am very stiff, but I will try to hold the rope.” 

Then Tmothy saw that a big rock was behind him 
that stuck out over the track away from the mountain 
side, and giving Henri the candle to hold, he fastened 
one end of the rope about the rock very firmly. 

“Henri,” he said, “I am going to find her. Pay out 
the rope to me. If I call, you will know she is alive.” 

All this time the dog had lain in the snow whining, 
but now that he saw what they were doing, he lifted 
his great head and howled. 

Timothy took the candle and began to go slowly 
down the snow slope, the dog following him. Twenty 


230 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


paces down he found the end of a cherry-colored scarf 
sticking out of the snow. There were tears in his eyes 
as he picked it up. And he kept calling, “We are 
coming. It is all right.” 

Then he found her. She was half-buried in the snow 
and held up by a little scrub of juniper growing on a 
rock. She was quite white and lay back limply as if 
she were dead. Her neck was bare and her hands were 
torn, as if in falling she had clutched feverishly at 
rocks to save herself, and from one hand a little pool 
of blood had run and it shone scarlet in the snow. 
The dog began to lick her face. Timothy knelt down 
beside her and having fixed his candle upright in the 
snow, he rubbed brandy on her face and tried to pour 
a few drops between her lips. Then he opened her 
dress and felt her heart. The shock of joy in finding 
the heart beat under his hand was so great that for a 
few moments he cried quietly. Then he called to 
Henri above, “She is alive !” And the answering 
shout came, “Thanks be to God and Our Lady!” 

The task of bringing her back was no easy one, 
but he managed to lift her across his shoulder and by 
hauling on the rope, he arrived at the track, where he 
laid her down, propped up against the rock. 

“We must wait for dawn,” said Henri. 

“Yes, we must wait.” 

He gave the guide a cigarette and lit one himself, 
and then wrapping Flip in his coat, began to chafe her 
arms until a little warmth came into them; then he 
took off her torn shoes and tried to get some warmth 
into her frozen feet. 


THE SNOW 231 

The three of them huddled together for warmth and 
sat waiting. 

The day broke a little after four, but the false dawn 
showed half an hour before. A cold gray light, ghastly 
pale, made itself felt; the shapes of things became 
apparent. Timothy could see Henri now, deep in sleep 
beside him; the rocks became visible. A flush so slight 
that it was only just noticeable came into the sky and 
he could see the mountains opposite to him towering 
up all steel-colored. At last the pink flush grew and 
the sun rose. 

Timothy held Flip very close in his arms, almost 
crushing her, as he looked down and saw where she 
had lain in the snow. Another step, and she had 
been dashed to pieces on the rocks far below. The 
slope of grass, now snow-covered, ran for about thirty 
feet until a rock stuck slightly up, which was covered 
with a scrub of juniper; beyond that the rock went 
sheer down for fifty feet or more into the bed of the 
river below. It was only by a miracle that she was 
saved. It was only by a miracle that he had not gone 
over the edge when he was looking for her. 

He found that he was so numb with cold that he 
could scarcely stir, and the arm that was round Flip 
was dead with cold and useless. It was some time be- 
fore he could unscrew the top of his flask and manage 
to swallow a little brandy. 

Then Flip stirred and moaned, and Timothy man- 
aged to get a little brandy down her throat and was 
relieved beyond words to see a little color come into 
her white lips. 


232 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

On his left he could see where the avalanche had 
broken down the track and had piled rocks in fantastic 
ways down the mountain side, leaving a great scar in 
its passage. And he could see now how a great mass 
of snow had, in falling, swept Almirac and Henri out 
of the way of the falling rocks and had cast them into 
a safe place, just as a wave may wash a man to safety 
in a storm. 

He was so cold and tired that his mind refused to work. 
He could only think in a dazed way that Flip was alive 
and he was alive, and it seemed to him to be part of a 
dream when he heard voices and saw figures round 
him, who spoke to him, it seemed, in a muzzy, drunken 
way, and he felt himself lifted up like a child, and then 
he came to his senses. 

“Lord Almirac?’’ he said. 

“He is all right,” said Victor Pic. “They are carry- 
ing him down. Now we shall carry the lady. Can 
you walk?” 

Timothy rubbed his eyes and stretched himself. 
“It will do me good to walk. I am so cold.” 

And so, going painfully and slowly, they came at 
last to his house. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE 

* * A A ^ dear, delightful and utterly adorable person,” 

* * * said Timothy, “you are a nuisance. You 
bother me. You persist in making a hideous jumble 
out of my life. You make a difficult situation seem 
like an extra chapter to Alice in Wonderland. When 
you ought to be on your dignity as a woman, you 
play with the dog and say, ‘Is I naughty ?’ like a 
child of six.” 

She smiled up at him from her deep chair on the 
veranda. 

“I shall bear it no longer,” said Timothy. “I have 
stood your perfectly charming convalescence for three 
weeks and every time I have tried to scold you, you 
say, ‘The doctor said that I mustn’t be worried.’ 
I ask you in the name of Fortune, what am I to do with 
a young woman who sends an entire village crazy, 
breaks Almirac’s arm, nearly kills Henri, and finally 
sits up like a good kitten and begs for cream and for- 
giveness? It isn’t human.” 

“I am a bother, aren’t I?” said Flip. 

“You are a consummate nuisance,” he answered 
airily. “I tell you this because the trouble is about 
to begin all over again. I have sent the young Romeo 
away with his entire career temporarily ruined.” 

She grinned. 

“Grin away, you heathen!” said Timothy. “What 
233 


234 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


sort of answer will that poor young man write in his 
examination papers? He will madly conjugate the 
verb amo, and will scribble Cupids all over the paper 
and sign his initials and yours as a heart with an arrow 
stuck through it. No more of that— he has gone. 
And now I ask myself — no, you needn’t speak — what 
next? I have consulted the stars, the Nine Muses, 
the big and little Hills, the Dog, and my own private 
tribe of blue devils, and I have come to one fantastic, 
ridiculous conclusion, and that is that I have got to 
marry you.” 

He reeled all this off in a reckless, lighthearted way, 
and stopped to await her answer. As she didn’t speak 
but looked down and clasped her hands, he continued: 

“Do not hesitate, bashful maiden. I admit I am 
perfectly mad to take the risk, but I shall buy a whip 
and a chain and I shall have your teeth blackened, 
and I shall insist on your wearing nothing but blue 
coats and skirts and varnished black straw hats, and 
I may be safe. You will admit I must be careful. 
But by my declaration you will see that I am not sane, 
you beautiful thing, and I have decided to renew my 
offer in the spirit in which we first met — Pierrot offers 
his heart to the Fairy Princess.” 

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, her face troubled. 

“My child,” he answered, “I will give you the 
correct reply for a Fairy Princess: 'Dearest Sir 
Timothy Swift, I have much pleasure in accepting 
your kind invitation to be your wife. I will be loving 
and dutiful, and will obey your every wish as if it were 
a command. Please excuse mistakes in spelling and 


THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE 


235 


forgive me for this short note. Yours in haste and for 
ever — Flip.’ There! And I shall reply in the true 
way: ‘Sir Timothy Swift requests the pleasure of 
Miss Philippina Newberry’s company at the English 
Church in Pau on June the First, to meet the Reverend 
Mister Brown. Eleven-thirty, Marriage. Luncheon, 
Twelve o’clock for Twelve-thirty. R.S.V.P.’ — Flip, 
you’re crying!” 

“It isn’t fair to Pinch,” she said, the tears rolling 
down her face. “He was nearly killed trying to save 
me, and I’ve upset his life and I’m very unhappy.” 

“I refuse to have Almirac turned into a hero; he 
hasn’t the proper figure. Besides, we were all nearly 
killed, Flip, you ridiculous person, when you ran away 


“I ran away,” she cried, “to make you all free of 
me. I’m in everybody’s way.” 

“And we put out our arms to stop you,” said Tim- 
othy. “ And you leapt straight into our hearts. Flip 
I am of rich but honest parents, and I can give you 
purple and fine linen.” 

“I hate purple,” she said, smiling. 

“There!” he threw out his hands. “Can anyone 
talk seriously to you? I will turn myself into a choc- 
olate shop and a lap-dog carrier and you shall see the 
sights of the world. The daring recklessness of Pierrot 
is on me. I will hie me to the shop where they sell the 
very best of rose-colored spectacles and I will say to the 
confirmed optimist in charge, ‘Please make me gra- 
ciously blind to all unpleasant things and give me of 
your very best spectacles of the deepest rose, for I have 


236 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


become a sentimentalist and I am going to be married.’ ” 

“No, Tim,” she said. “No.” 

“It is Spring,” he went on, in his extravagant mood, 
“and whole choirs of Cupids are singing in the trees 
and throngs of throbbing thrushes in the lanes. Oh, 
my dear, my dear, we are young, let us hug ourselves 
that we are young. Come, we will not live like other 
people. We will do mad, eccentric things — walk on 
rose-petals, the admired of everybody, and we will 
throw confetti at serious-minded people.” 

“I should spoil your life.” 

“This seriousness is not like you,” he said. 

“I must be serious,” she said. “I owe Pinch all I 
can give him.” 

“ Give him an eyeglass for his other eye.” 

“Tim,” she said, “I have told you what I am like.” 

“Shall I tell you what you are like?” he said, laugh- 
ing. “The poet’s fire is on me. You were born on 
the top of a sugar cake and you had wings of angelica, 
and you have no heart but an almond, and you had 
eight fairies for godmothers.” 

She sat looking before her, only half-listening to 
him, and all the while wondering what to do. To 
marry him would settle many things, yet in her heart 
there stirred for the first time a maternal pity, and the 
pity was for Almirac. Ever since she had seen him 
with his arm in a sling, she had begun to notice how 
tenderly he watched her every movement; how, in his 
quiet way, he did little tender things for her; how, 
despite the way she had treated him, he remained the 
same, faithful and uncomplaining. 


THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE 237 

Timothy finished up his rhapsody by saying, “And 
so the young butterfly flew to that place where they 
sell special licenses dipped in honey and flew back, 
ready to carry the rainbow fairy to church. After 
which they made their home in an acorn cup lined with 
cobwebs and lived happily ever afterward.” 

She raised her eyes to his and shook her head. 

“Darling,” he said quickly, “you know I can’t live 
without you.” 

The feeling in his voice was such that she turned her 
head away. 

“Don’t you worry,” he said, “I’ll do it all. It is 
better this way, and it is kinder too. There will be 
no problems, no bothers about Society. You can 
go anywhere as my wife, but not as Almirac’s. You 
see that, don’t you? It puts everything back into its 
proper place.” 

“Dear,” said Flip, “I’m trying very hard to be 
good. I always cared for you more than for anybody. 
I don’t know if that is love. But, you see, I do owe 
something to him. If I married you Pinch would be 
so lonely. And I might make you very unhappy.” 

For answer he bent over her and kissed her. “That 
settles it,” he whispered. “I’ll go at once and arrange 
things. You stay here and pack up your things and 
when I come back we’ll get married and go anywhere — 
desert, sea, islands, tropics, anywhere. Life is going 
to be a dream of happiness. Before you came I was 
getting old and morbid and over-serious. Now! Oh, 
ye Gods, what a gift a woman is!” 

He left her and went into the house and she could 


238 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


hear him issuing orders for his things to be packed for 
the journey, and hear him singing as he wandered about 
collecting things, and all the while she wondered what 
she ought to do. 

After dejeuner Timothy set out for Pau. It was 
like his sudden nature to go straight for the thing in 
hand and see it through. He kissed her farewell and 
gave his last instructions. “I’ll do this,” he said. 
“You’re not to worry. We will make it all right for 
Almirac.” 

With a lover’s selfishness he imagined that the sight 
of things settled and of two happy people would be 
balm to Almirac’s eyes, and when he thought of going 
to the hotel to see him he thought better of it. “Let 
it come as a surprise.” 

An hour after he had gone, Philippina walked to 
a special seat of hers above the house. It was a grass- 
seated throne in a cleft on the rocks, and it was the 
home of sweet-smelling pinks and of many quaint rock 
mosses and flowers. She sat there a neat dainty 
figure, like some rare ornament from a drawing-room 
mantelpiece left out in the huge arms of Nature, an 
alien in the wonderful grandeur around her. 

As she sat there one might have thought the elves 
and fairies were sitting about her on the grass, whisper- 
ing to her, that the notes of Pan’s flute were in her ears, 
that her eyes saw the majestic calm of the snows and 
the profound melancholy of the pines. It was not so. 

As she sat, the voice of cities was in her ears and the 
troubled sounds of streets and of soft modulated Society 
gossiping, and she felt the press of crowds and longed 


THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE 


239 


for the sex signal of a chance-caught eye. She saw the 
light of restaurants and the torrent of Piccadilly, and 
the crowded friendliness of the Paris Boulevards and 
the glittering shops of Vienna. Just as they say the 
man who has once been to the Arctic regions longs 
always to see the boundless expanse of ice again, so 
she hungered for fuss and fashion and the jargon of 
the moment and for theaters and all the backgrounds 
of the life she had left. 

She began to draw a picture of her life with Timothy. 
She knew he would soon tire of towns and town life 
and long for the country which held him in loving 
grasp. She knew that, despite all he had said, he would 
be strict with her and try to mould her into being a 
different kind of woman. He would want her to bear 
him children. And as she thought of this, the flame 
of the other life seemed to flare up, inviting her to 
scorch her new wings, and she rose wearily as one who 
gave in. She felt she was breaking prison bars, though 
she was only making new ones. She thought she was 
breaking chains of bondage, while she was really hold- 
ing out her wrists for new chains. And the bonds 
of the true love she might have had dropped away and 
the bonds of the lesser loves twined their first thin 
tendrils round her wrists. 

“I’m not big enough, I’m not good enough, I’m 
not great enough,” she said to herself. Then she 
went slowly down to the house and there did what 
was always a painful thing for her: she wrote a letter. 
And after that she went to the hotel, to Almirac. 

“Take me away,” she said, “I am ready.” 


240 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


When Timothy came home on the fourth day he 
rode up the mountain side feeling like a king. In 
his breast pocket he carried his special license. In 
another was a diamond engagement ring, and in his 
waistcoat pocket, over his heart, was a plain circle 
of gold. 

He left his horse and ran into the house calling, 
“Flip,” and was met by silence. This made him 
smile. She would be shy to meet him. Then taking 
out the box that held the engagement ring, he went 
upstairs to her room, knocked at the door and waited. 
And then he saw that two of her boxes that usually 
stood in the passage were gone. He turned the handle 
of the door, and saw the utter emptiness of the room. 
A bare-furnished place, without her ornaments, her 
dresses, without the flowers she always put there. And 
on the bed was a letter. 

The little box dropped from his hand as he stood 
looking at the letter. The word “Tim” sprawled 
across the envelope. 

He remained quite still for a moment, frozen, un- 
thinking; and then he reached out his hand for the 
letter and turned it around in his fingers. 

He went downstairs with the letter in his hand 
and called to his servant, who came at once to him. 

“How long has mademoiselle been gone?” 

“Since two days, monsieur.” 

“Thank you,” he said, and dismissed her. 

All of a sudden he felt very sick and dizzy as if he 
had been too long in the sun, and he sank down in a 
big chair with the letter still in his hand, but the word 


THE STOOL OF REPENTANCE 


241 


“Tim” seemed to run about on the page and he could 
not focus it. 

Not a moan or a cry escaped him, he was like a 
man turned to stone. Putting the letter down on 
the table he filled a pipe, lit it, and went out of doors. 
The valley below seemed almost ugly, and the 
mountains dull. There was no life in the place. 

He tried to think that she might have gone to 
Pau to find him, but he knew it was not true. He 
knew in his heart she had gone away with Almirac. 
She had failed him a second time. 

Then he said aloud, to convince himself, “I’m 
damn well rid of her.” But the words carried no 
conviction. 

He finished his pipe, knocked out the ashes care- 
fully, and then laid the license from his pocket beside 
the unopened letter and laughed dryly. And then he 
opened the letter. 

“You will never forgive me. I’m not worth for- 
giving. You are too good, much too good for me. 
I should only spoil your life, and I don’t want to. I 
am really and truly trying to do the best thing; please 
try to think that. I should be a drag on you. 

“Tim dear, you would only get tired of me. I 
am not clever or anything like that, and I love heaps 
of things you hate. Pinch has no one except me, 
and you have heaps of people who love you. I do 
hope you will meet some woman who is more worthy 
of you and who will make you happy. Perhaps one 
day you will be able to think better of me. You are 
the best man I have ever known, and I know I should 


242 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


make you miserable. I can’t write all I feel, Tim dear, 
but please try not to think too hardly of me. I ought 
never to have given you any hope. I didn’t mean to. 
I wonder if you are hating me as you read this; perhaps 
it would be better if you could. I am not worth 
loving. I know I’m a beast. Good-bye.” 

Timothy read the letter twice, and then folded it 
up neatly and replaced it in the envelope and put it 
with the marriage license into his pocket. He had 
been standing all the time, and now he felt his knees 
shake. But holding a firm grip of himself and leaning 
with one hand on the table, he called again to the 
woman who looked after him, “Uranie!” 

She came at once at his call and was about to speak, 
but he checked her. 

“Did mademoiselle leave any message for me — 
any verbal message?” 

“Mais non, monsieur.” 

“Nothing?” 

“She cried a good deal, and she ” 

“I don’t want to hear anything about it. She left 
no actual message?” 

“Mais non, monsieur.” 

“You may go.” 

“Monsieur?” 

“Thank you. I need nothing. Wait — where is the 
dog?” 

“Mademoiselle took the dog, monsieur.” 

He had to hold himself very firm to prevent crying 
out. He waved the woman away. 

So even the dog had deserted him. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


MYSELF WHEN YOUNG 

TT was Pere Berade, the old priest, who found 
* Timothy surrounded by packing-cases three days 
later. 

The good father, after looking through the window, 
on a scene of desolation — books on the floor, walls 
without pictures — took his customary dose of snuff 
and blew upon his nose like a trumpet signal. 

The sound caused Timothy to look up, nod, and 
go on with his work. 

“You would appear to be packing/’ said the Cure 
through the open window. 

“ Appearances have not deceived you,” said Timothy. 

“You are going away?” said the Cure. 

“For good,” Timothy answered. 

“I hope it is for good,” said the Cure, using the 
word in another sense. 

“I neither know nor care,” said Timothy. 

The Cure sat for a while looking at the beautiful 
view before him and turned over in his mind the 
words he wished to speak, considering how he might 
best begin. 

“I saw them go,” he said. 

“To the Devil, I hope,” said Timothy in a calm 
voice. 


243 


244 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


The Cure smiled. It was always more easy to treat 
with a man who possessed a temper. 

“You are wounded,” he said. 

“Not in the least,” said Timothy cheerfully. 

“Then you leave us because you are tired of the 
place?” 

“I am tired of everything.” 

Now Pere Berade had been waiting for this moment 
for two years. He loved the young man as a son, 
and he prayed that one day the emptiness of his life 
might come to him and then that he might drop into 
the void something of vital importance. 

“And what are you going to do?” he inquired. 

“I am going to raise Hell in my own particular 
way,” said Timothy, hammering down the lid of a case. 

“Chacun a son gout,” said the Cure. 

“Exactly.” 

“Do you know why the expression comes of a bear 
with a sore head?” said the Cure. 

“I have never dived so deep,” said Timothy, again 
hammering. 

“It is because the poor bear tried to steal other 
people’s honey and got badly stung.” 

Timothy put by the hammer and came out on to the 
veranda. “Mon pere,” he said, “I know what you 
are driving at, but you axe wrong. I am very glad 
those people have gone. The very fact of their going 
to enjoy themselves has wakened me, and I am going 
to enjoy myself — after my own way.” 

“I understand,” said the old priest, “I understand 
very well, as it repeats my own youth.” 


MYSELF WHEN YOUNG 


245 


Now if an old man tells a young man that he once 
had a great love affair, it seems to the young man to 
be some perversion of Nature, as though elderly Cupids 
in spectacles and mufflers shot feebly with dull arrows. 
They bow in silence and return to the heat of their 
own affairs. Ashes seem to have so little to do with 
fires. To the young, old men are empty grates. 

Timothy did not continue the subject except by 
an interval of respectful, incredulous silence. In the 
first place, he was too numb and heart-weary to take 
any interest, and in the second place, he did not intend 
there should be any interference in his own affairs. 

But the priest was not to be put off. “I thought 
myself a very dashing fellow,” he said. 

To link this dried parchment with the idea of a 
dashing fellow was beyond Timothy’s imagination, 
so he replied as politely as he could, “ Really?” 

“When I was a very young man,” said the Cure, 
not to be beaten, “and long before I dreamed of be- 
coming a priest, I was what you call, I think, a man 
about town ” 

“Oh, yes,” said Timothy. 

“I had a small fortune, nearly all of which I spent 
in following a celebrated dancer about the cities of 
Europe. You may have heard of her. She was called 
Odette Velour.” 

“Odette Velour!” said Timothy, now roused. “Why 
she ” 

The Cure held up a hand. “Mon ami, she did 
many things. She even died in my arms.” 


246 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“She died in your arms!” said Timothy almost 
incredulously. 

“It is an old story,” said the priest musingly. “I 
wanted to marry her. I deserted my home, my mother, 
my friends. I spent my money on jewels for her and 
flowers and dresses. At last she promised to marry 
me and I was in the seventh heaven of delight. Every- 
thing was arranged, the day arrived, and I, with beating 
heart, drove up to her door. They told me she had 
left early that morning with a Banker from Frankfort. 
I followed her with madness in my heart. I arrived 
in Frankfort to find the place in an uproar. Odette 
had been shot by a former lover, just as she was going 
into the stage door of the theater. 

“It was I who was with her at the last; she would 
admit no one else. 

“Mon ami, I went mad. For six months I lived 
in expensive gutters with lost souls — God forgive me, 
I should not say that — and one day, I was only twenty- 
one, I stumbled half-drunk into a church, God guiding 
my footsteps. There I heard a sermon given by a 
good man on behalf of a Society of Missionaries to a 
Leper Colony. I sprang at the idea. I had nothing 
to live for, and here was an opportunity of death and 
repentance. I saw the good man and poured out my 
story. I told him I had a call.” 

There was a pause, while the Cure looked far away 
across the valley. 

“And then?” said Timothy. 

“When everything was ready and I was to go as a 
lay worker, I became a coward. I was cured of my 


MYSELF WHEN YOUNG 


247 


desire for death now that life once more opened her 
arms to me. I ran away, mon ami, and hid myself, 
and they sailed without me. I dared not face my fellow 
men. I went far into the country — into Italy — and 
threw myself on the hospitality of an old priest who had 
prepared my father for confirmation. He understood 
me. I became a priest.” 

The old man stopped, and fixed his eyes on Timothy. 

“Why do you tell me this?” he asked. 

“I have waited,” said the Cure, “all these years, 
hoping to find some one brave enough to expiate my 
cowardice. I could die in peace.” 

For an instant Timothy failed to see his meaning, 
then it struck him. “You tell me this,” he cried, 
“because my life is empty, because I do nothing for 
anybody, and am, you think, in danger of plunging 
into wild excesses. Me! Do you think I have the 
pluck or the desire to go to end my days in a Leper 
Island just because this woman has made the world 
black for me? Y ou are very much mistaken, monsieur. 
I thank you very much for your confidence and” — 
in a gentler tone — “for your belief in me. But it is 
impossible, it is extravagant, absurd.” 

“Perhaps!” sighed the Cure. 

Timothy’s face was set and stern as he spoke. “If 
I see her again I shall meet her as if there had never 
been anything between us. She can end her days as 
she must end them, and I shall not care. Do you know 
what she has done for me, my friend? She has taught 
me the value of things. I will never open my heart to 
a living soul again. I know now why I have thought 


248 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


some men hard. I know now why Club windows are 
full of bitter cynical faces. Some damned woman has 
poisoned those people. But they enjoy life better; 
they are free of sickly emotions.” 

“My son,” said the priest, “if you take love out of 
your heart, you take God out also.” 

“God!” said the young man, with infinite contempt. 
“What has He done for me?” 

The priest looked out across the beauty of the valley, 
and his lips sent out a prayer. 

“Am I to turn the other cheek?” said Timothy 
bitterly. 

“To be a Light in the Darkness,” the Cur6 was 
whispering. 

“I loved her,” said Timothy. “I loved her, heart 
and soul and body. I gave up all myself to her — 
and she went away. May I be struck dead if I believe 
in a woman again.” 

“Love and Pain are exquisite sisters.” 

“My eyes are opened now,” said Timothy. “I 
see now why I know of no happy marriage. I see now 
why people were amazed when they met a man who said 
he was happy — they were amazed at a man being such 
a great fool, or such a stupid liar. Thank you very 
much for your goodness and your help and interest. 
I am giving this house and land to you. I will give 
you also these for keepsakes.” He took the marriage 
license from his pocket and her letter and threw them 
onto the Cure’s knees. 

Then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, he 
added, “Mon pere, I have changed my mind. Why 


MYSELF WHEN YOUNG 


249 


should I trouble to pack all these senseless books? 
Everything is yours. I will go away from this place 
as I came into it, with a pack on my back and on the 
road. Half the rubbish you will find is written by 
people who call themselves poets. There is quite a 
lot of print about the stars and women’s eyes, and roses 
and women’s lips, and now and again you will find 
them treated with a little scourge of the naked 
truth.” 

He stopped short, out of breath with the vehemence 
with which he had spoken, and he saw that the Cure 
was reading Flip’s letter. 

“Well,” he said, “ what do you think of that effusion?” 

“Poor child!” said the old man, shaking his head. 
“Poor child. She has a good heart. God will under- 
stand.” 

Timothy turned on his heel abruptly, and went into 
the house. 

The Cure sat with the letter and the marriage license 
on his knees, and saw how in the valley below children 
were carrying food to their fathers who worked in the 
fields. 

Timothy came out on to the veranda again. “ Come, 
mon pere, our last dejeuner together and a bottle of 
the best wine. While there’s wine there’s hope. And 
after dinner a good cigar, and then farewell.” 

They ate and drank and smoked together, while 
Timothy talked feverishly until it came to the time 
when he rose and held out his hand. 

“ Good-bye,” he said. 


250 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“But this house, these things — you did not mean 
me to have them?” 

“Everything is yours. I have no use for them. 
Uranie will remain. It is a poor gift, because it hap- 
pens I do not want them. Thank you for every- 
thing. I will arrange with a solicitor in Pau about 
the transfer.” 

He seized his pack, which stood ready in the hall, 
took a cap and stick, and took to the road without a 
glance back. And as the Cure watched him stride 
out of sight, he seemed to be watching a figure of him- 
self when young. 




Part III 

CHAPTER XXIV 


I. TANGO DE PICCADILLY 

T T was just before the luncheon hour when Timothy 
* Swift walked up Piccadilly. It was the hour when 
the young bloods were sipping cocktails and the older 
bloods were drinking glasses of brown sherry, and 
early lunchers were gazing with pursed lips at the 
cold table in the dining-room. And the backs of 
obsequious waiters were bowed, and people flowed 
into the big restaurants. 

Piccadilly herself presented the appearance of a 
vast dancing academy. People with a certain sense 
of rhythm and propriety passed one another in a series 
of fantastic figures, threaded in and out in an orderly 
disorder, this way and that way came couples carefully 
dressed to represent the prevailing fashion, looking 
very glossy and well fed and elegant, and past them came 
couples and solitary pedestrians dressed anyhow to 
express contempt for the fashion, and through and 
through this writhing serpent of life came people with 
hungry faces and broken shoes. And here and there 
a policeman played a Master of Ceremonies and held 
back rich and poor at street corners with uplifted hand, 
as if one figure of the dance was finished and a pause 
should be made before the next began. So complete 
251 


252 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


was the order and so well did the people know every 
figure of the dance, that the ragged creature who sold 
newspapers opposite to a goldsmith’s shop never 
thought of the gold purses and diamond rings there 
displayed, indeed his thoughts were fixed on a good 
murder or the racing finals as being sent by the Gods 
to help him sell his papers. 

That the figures of the dance were intricate and 
various may be shown by the fact that two gentlemen, 
emerging fully buttonholed from the big flower shop, 
were discussing whether they would go to Monte Carlo 
or Mentone for the winter, while almost cheek by jowl 
with them two odd-looking characters were exchanging 
views as to the merits of Portland and Reading Gaols, 
and discussing them with interior knowledge. 

Like perfect ball-room dancers, the crowd never 
seemed to get confused or entangled or to jostle more 
than was accidental, and if one of them was run over 
in crossing the street he was quickly put aside and 
forgotten by the rest, much as if he had been a dead 
gladiator in a Roman amphitheater, and in a little 
while the only signs of him would be a small knot of 
mildly gesticulating people, a cab drawn up to the 
curb, and a stolid policeman taking notes in a pocket- 
book. 

The fullest expression of vitality this wonderful 
mile could have was when there struck above all other 
notes the insistent clanging of a bell, a fierce harsh 
note, upon which all heads would turn in one direction, 
the great omnibuses would huddle together, a way be 
forced through the traffic, and at a fine speed, with 


TANGO DE PICCADILLY 


253 


the flash of brass helmets, the shouting of many voices, 
a fire engine would dash madly along. After it had 
vanished, the stalk-like progress of the dance would 
be carried on up and down as if nothing had 
happened. 

It seemed that London’s old, awful voice chanted 
her air to the woods of that other giant: 

“Fa, Fi, Fo, Fum, 

I smell the blood of an Englishman. 

Be he alive or be he dead, 

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.” 

Taking his way out of what appeared to be a colored 
plait of human beings, Timothy walked up the steps 
of the Stag Club and passed through the glass doors. 

Nothing was changed. The hall-porter glanced 
at him over his glasses, reached out a hand to the 
pigeon-hole marked S, thumbed through a pile of letters, 
and said, “ Nothing to-day, Sir Timothy,” as if no years 
had intervened. The same waiter in the unaltered 
smoking-room said, “A dry Martini?” without the 
least effort of memory. A man looked up from a paper 
and said, “ Hallo, Swift,” and dived into the paper again, 
his brains bent on solving a Cricket Acrostic. It 
was in a sense a humiliation; it had its comic side, and 
Timothy, steeled, starved and bitter with his sense of 
personal grief, could not help but smile grimly. 

II. SERIO-COMIC 

He was seized by the shoulders, turned round, to 
find himself face to face with George Weatherby. 
Now, George Weatherby had something of the eternal 


254 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


boy in him and something of the dog. He was gay, 
affectionate, and superficially theatrical, like all chil- 
dren. And his greeting was a mixture of all three. 

“You silly old ass!” he cried. “Well, I’m simply 
dashed. And fatter. And stronger. And — by gosh, 
I’m glad to see you.” 

The man in the chair roused himself at this greeting 
and turning a solemn face to Weatherby, he asked, 
“Excuse me, George, but did a man called Ward play 
for England in ’91?” 

“Don’t know,” said Weatherby. “Swift, d’you 
know our lunatic, Quiller?” 

“Did a man called Ward play for England in ’91?” 
asked Quiller plaintively. 

“Can’t remember,” said Timothy seriously. 

“And don’t care,” said Weatherby. “Food, Tim? 
I’ve a heap to tell you.” 

So it was like this: one came back a new man full 
of experiences, with a broken heart, with no purpose, 
with a great hole in one’s life, with a black future of 
despair, and lo and behold, in a few minutes one was 
treated like a schoolboy, and, marvel of all, for a few 
minutes all the bouncing schoolboy rose in one and 
responded. 

“Grub,” said Timothy, making for the dining-room. 

They were strangely silent at the beginning of lunch; 
the gap dividing their interests needed some bridging. 
And when Weatherby spoke, he did so in an off-handed 
way as if a journey across Africa were a daily occurrence. 
“I’m off to-morrow,” he said. 

“Just as I’ve come back,” said Timothy. 


SERIO-COMIC 


255 


“Chucked the service,” Weatherby announced. 

“Resigned! Why?” 

“Had to.” 

“Hard up?” said Timothy. 

“No,” said Weatherby. “Going to find a chap.” 

“Seems an odd thing to do.” 

“Things are odd.” 

Now, with two women these preliminaries would 
not have been necessary; they would have plunged 
shamelessly into the main argument. But with men, 
who are the really sensitive creatures and suffer from 
an abnormal fear of looking ridiculous, such fencing 
is always necessary. Here was a man about to set 
forth on an amazing quest as wild and splendid as any 
undertaken by Don Quixote, and he stumbled over the 
few words he needed to set out its purpose to his 
friend. 

“Who’s the man?” said Timothy innocently. Even 
with his bitter experience he had not the gumption to 
ask, “Who’s the woman?” 

The answer, “Dolly Sterne’s husband,” gave the clue. 

“I’d forgotten she had one,” said Timothy. 

“He’s forgotten he has a wife,” said Weatherby 
frowning. “I say, would you mind coming across 
to my rooms, old chap? I’m dashed if I can talk here. 
That is, if you’re not doing anything.” 

“Not a thing,” said Timothy, hiding a fury of curi- 
osity. 

They finished lunch and strolled across to Weather- 
by’s rooms in Half Moon Street, and there dumbness 
again descended upon them, dumbness only rendered 


256 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


articulate by such sentences as, “What a stack 
of luggage!” “Decent rifle, what?” “Drop of old 
brandy?” 

At last Weatherby, with his back to the fire-place 
and in an attitude of defence and defiance, stammered 
out his story. 

“Of course the whole thing is rotten,” he began, 
“rotten to the core. I don’t say the man’s a cad; I 
don’t say he’s not plucky, and I know he’s a fine shot, 
but ” 

“You are speaking of Sterne, of course,” said Tim- 
othy from a cloud of cigar smoke. 

“I am speaking of Sterne. I’m going to find the 
feller and bring him home if I have to bring him in a 
cage.” 

“I didn’t know you knew him,” said Timothy. 

“I don’t, my dear Tim. I don’t know the feller 
from Adam. I wish the swine had never been born. 
I do really. Here he goes and leaves this sweet little 
woman languishing at home ” 

“I never noticed she languished much,” said 
Timothy. 

“Well, you know what I mean. A dear gener- 
ous natured child left alone in a house with only 
about twelve hundred a year and practically no rela- 
tions ” 

“Seems to me a blessing,” said Timothy. 

“But you see, you don’t know her. You think of 
her as a kind of society butterfly gadding about and 
all that. My dear man, she’s an angel. She loathes 
society, and — well, she’d like to have kids and a proper 


SERIO-COMIC 257 

home and all that. I tell you sometimes when I think 
of that man ” 

“ Are you in love with Mrs. Sterne?” 

Weatherby turned almost purple. “Good heavens, 
man, haven’t I been saying so for the last hour?” 

“And you propose crossing Africa in order to tell 
her husband this?” 

“What else can a man do?” said Weatherby. “The 
chap’s disappeared. As I said to Dolly, I said, Til 
find the chap if I have to search Africa, and I shall 
simply say to him, ‘Come home or get out.’ You 
see what I mean? You don’t know Dolly; she’s — well, 
she’s one of the best. We— in fact, we were absolutely 
made for one another, old man, and that’s all about it. 
So I’m off to-morrow. You agree it’s the only thing 
to do?” 

(A scene in Darkest Africa. A man in tattered 
clothes, with the marks of starvation in his face, limps 
into a camp where a white man is seated on a packing- 
case skinning a bird. “Is your name Sterne?” “it 
is.” “Then mine is Weatherby, and I’m in love with 
your wife.” “Really?” “It’s as true as I live. You 
either come home and make life possible for her, or 
give her up by letter, and I’m here to take it.”) 

“George,” said Timothy, “no woman is worth it.” 

“That’s all very fine and large, old chap,” said 
Weatherby, “but you don’t know Dolly.” 

“They are all the same,” said Timothy. “Every 
one of them. Give it up; come away with me. I’ll 
go anywhere. I’m sick of women. I hate women. 
You can’t trust them, they lie, they don’t care how they 


258 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


treat a man. I’ve been hit, George, and I know. 
Take it from me, they’re no good.” 

“I don’t say there may not be some rotters, but 
you don’t know Dolly.” 

“ I know her well enough to know that she can only 
be caught in one way. What’s the good of this fan- 
tastic chase in a dashed dreary climate in order to find 
a man you never want to see again? Absurd! Go 
in and ask her to marry you, and do it. The law has 
ways to fix it for you — desertion — all those things, 
and marry her if you love her. If you leave her, it’s 
ten to one she’ll go off with another man. They are 
all alike.” 

He said this so bitterly that Weatherby looked at 
him in amazement. “ What’s up?” he asked. “You’ve 
been chucked.” 

“I’ve been thrown aside like a dirty rag,” said Tim- 
othy savagely, “Used and chucked away. I don’t 
believe there’s a decent woman in the world, anyhow 
not in our set. Twice she’s done it, and I’ve finished 
with women now.” 

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Weatherby, “but you 
see Dolly is different.” 

“You’re a blind fool,” said Timothy. 

“I’m not going by any back ways to get her,” said 
Weatherby. “The man must give her up to me him- 
self. Of course I shall do a bit of shooting and all that 
before I find him. B ut I intend to have it out with him. 
It’s the straight thing to do. I’ve thought the whole 
thing out, and I’ve decided with Dolly to give the chap 
a chance. For we all know, he may be a prisoner with 


SERIO-COMIC 


259 


one of these tribes, and so can’t come home; or he may 
be ill or anything, and we thought it only fair to give 
the feller the benefit of the chance.” 

“Babies.” 

“I daresay, old man, but I’m going. I’m sorry for 
you, but I hope you’ll get over it.” 

Timothy got up and went to the window and looked 
down the street to the passing crowds of Piccadilly. 
“Twice,” he said to himself. “I haven’t a heart left. 
I’m done in that way. God knows what I shall do 
with myself. She was everything in life to me. Even 
now, if she came back, I believe I should be fool enough 
to go to her.” 

Weatherby said nothing. He realized that this 
man was undergoing some mental torture he had no 
arts to heal. Profoundly wrapped up as he was in 
his own affair, he felt an infinite pity for Timothy, 
the superior pity a man in love feels for one who had 
been forsaken. 

“Look here,” he said, “if I put this off for a month, 
would you think it over and come with me? It might 
take your mind off things for a bit.” 

“Very kind,” said Timothy, turning round, “but 
please don’t bother. I’m all right. If you are not 
doing anything to-night, dine with me at the Savoy , 
and let us go somewhere. I haven’t seen a thing for 
years.” 

“All right.” 

“And — er — don’t bother about me. It doesn’t 
matter.” 


260 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


It was characteristic of Weatherbv that he im- 
mediately took the case to Dolly Sterne. It was 
characteristic of the two perfectly child-like people 
that by dint of influence, persuasion and money 
Weatherby’s berth was changed from the boat on which 
he was to have sailed to one that sailed a month later. 
Neither of them felt there was anything incongruous 
in their positions. They were innocent as the day. 
They were also totally ignorant of the cause that kept 
Sterne away. They did not know that it was an over- 
powering shyness. He had a passion for animals, and 
he was a silent, shy man with human beings. He had 
married Dolly in a vast wave of love which had obliter- 
ated his shyness for the moment, and had then felt his 
own unworthiness, so he had gone back to his animals 
and the wilds in an excess of humility and dumb agony. 
And he had only once returned in five years, to find 
himself in the possession of a beautiful wife who talked 
a language he did not understand, in surroundings that 
frightened him, with people who chattered all round 
him, and so he had gone back without saying all that 
he meant to say. And then George Weatherby had 
come into her life. 

Weatherby said nothing of this at dinner, nor did 
he mention the change in his plans. They dined and 
went to a Musical Comedy, after the fashion of their 
youth. And they supped and smoked and condemned 
the early closing of the restaurant just as they had 
always done. And when they turned out at half-past 
twelve into a perfect night some fragrant memory 


SERIO-COMIC 


261 


stirred in them like the scent of flowers and night, and 
without a word they began to walk home, just as they 
had walked years before on the night that Timothy 
first met Flip. They parted conventionally at nearly 
the same place and Timothy continued on his way 
alone. 

By Kensington Gardens he stopped. By an odd 
coincidence a cab had broken down nearly in the same 
place that her cab had broken down. But no door 
opened to let out a Fairy Princess, and it was a cynical, 
bitter Pierrot who walked alone to his house. 

The stars were but cold fires, the moon a mass of 
extinct volcanoes. 

III. DREAMS 

Dreams visited his pillow that night so that Hope 
blossomed again, and with it came a vision of Flip, 
sweet, loving, yielding. And the birds sang again, 
and a rainbow arched over his head. The voices of 
children that were to be his whispered in his ears, and 
glad fountains splashed. He held out his arms to take 
her to him and she changed to the expressionless 
Almirac, and he woke. The clock in his room struck 
six. Another day. 


CHAPTER XXV 


IN THE SWIM 

F OR three days Timothy leant upon the resources 
of London. He lunched and dined and supped 
and stayed up until sunrise, and drank more cham- 
pagne than was good for him, and went to three theaters, 
and was terribly bored with every single moment of it. 
The mountains had cured him of restaurants and late 
hours and hot rooms, and when he sat up in bed on the 
fourth day he decided that such a life was no panacea 
for his particular evil. Filling the stomach will not 
always satisfy the hunger of the heart. 

London offers an infinity of means for killing Time, 
if one is anxious for the death of that venerable person. 
One can stand where Dryden stood, in the Piazza of 
Covent Garden, or sit in the room where Johnson sat 
when he made the Dictionary, or see the room where 
David Garrick’s wife died, or visit the arches where 
lay one of Jack the Ripper’s murdered ladies. One 
can stand over the immortal dust of Charles Dickens, 
and gaze up at the windows of the room where Thack- 
eray wrote, climb the stairs of Boswell’s house, or visit 
the grave of that cynical sentimentalist, Sterne. These 
offer days of dreams. 

On the other hand, you can easily become acquainted 
with the leading lights of the Chorus and spend much 
money talking to semi-educated but very charming 
262 


IN THE SWIM 


263 


people, who will sing into the small hours of the morn- 
ing and then motor madly with you to some country 
inn for breakfast. These offer days of nightmare. 

But if you are hungry for quietude and the peace 
of your soul, and the mistress of your heart, none of 
these things suffice: too much dusty history, or too 
many marrons glaces cause a surfeit. 

So it came about that Timothy braved the day and 
set out at an unconventional hour to visit Mrs. New- 
berry, rather in the way that a murderer is said to be 
drawn to the scene of his crime. Fortune had it that 
Mrs. Newberry was in at half-past twelve, and Timothy 
was shown into a newly-decorated drawing-room, a 
little staggering in its color, but at least inspired by 
one idea. Then Mrs. Newberry came to him. 

She said, “Well!” and held out her hands. 

And he said “Well?” and took them. 

“And wonderfully improved,” she said. 

He replied that he was as fit as a fiddle, and sat 
down. So far the conventions had not been stirred. 

“You’ve done the room up,” he remarked. 

“We are all redecorated this season,” said Mrs. 
Newberry. “I’m using a purple powder.” 

“ So I see!” he replied bluntly. And the conventions 
became uneasy. 

“This is the Futurist Room,” she said blandly. 
“Grace, Almirac’s wife, did it. She’s gone in for 
decorating. Isn’t it awful?” 

“Awful!” said he. 

“Primitive, that’s what Grace calls it. She says 
our color sense needs shocking.” 


264 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“She’s done it,” said Timothy, looking round. 

“I think the purple ceiling is the worst effort,” 
said Mrs. Newberry, smiling gently. “Or perhaps 
the emerald-green carpet beats it.” 

“Why do you do it?” he asked. 

“What else have I to do?” 

“So you still see Grace Almirac?” said Timothy. 

“I did,” she answered, “but now she’s gone to America 
to startle New York, and incidentally to wait for her 
release. Then she says she’s going to marry brains.” 

He was about to come direct to the reason of his 
visit when Newberry came into the room. 

“My dear Swift!” he said, in his hearty way. “The 
very man. Augusta, old Finch can’t come to lunch, 
and here comes Swift to take his place and save us 
from a boring party.” 

It turned out to be one of those unaccountable 
lunches where one meets an eye specialist, a lady who 
goes in for spiritualism, a horse breeder, an Academician, 
a bored Society beauty and a schoolgirl. And as 
far as Timothy could see, they none of them wanted 
to meet in the very least. 

Newberry, however, had his very good reasons for 
the party. He had lent the artist money, borrowed 
it from the spiritualistic lady, was in love with the 
schoolgirl, had been entangled with the Beauty, and 
was going to get a prescription for nothing out of the 
eye specialist. In consequence of which he exerted 
all his very numerous charms and became a brilliant 
and fascinating host. And in consequence of that he 
got exactly what he wanted: that is, he got his free 


IN THE SWIM 


265 


advice about his eyes, got a tip from the horse 
breeder, the promise of a picture for nothing from 
the artist: (“I wonder if you could do me a little 
thing of my old place down in Devonshire — just a 
sketch, any old thing, at any old time?”), he flattered 
the spiritualistic lady by defending her views, vowed 
eternities to the Beauty as he saw her into her car; 
and drove the schoolgirl to the Carlton for tea. 

This left Timothy alone with Mrs. Newberry. 

“ Isn’t it a wonderful crust?” she said. 

“He fascinates me,” Timothy admitted. 

“There’s a lot of him in Flip,” she answered. And 
the conventions bristled. 

“She went away with Almirac,” said Timothy, 
“and left me. She’s left me absolutely broken. I 
thought I’d come and see you before I go away. I’m 
going somewhere; I don’t know where.” 

“Everybody in love with everybody else’s wives, 
and nobody happy,” said Mrs. Newberry. 

“What do people say?” 

“My dear friend,” she said, “I really don’t remember. 
That was a seven-days’ scandal many months ago; 
they have re-fronted Buckingham Palace since then, 
and there’s been a change in the Government. Did 
she hurt you?” 

“Need you ask?” 

She came over to him and looked him straight in 
the face. “My dear,” she said, “it’s made a man of 
you; it would have made a fool of most men. Be a 
man. Don’t think of the poor little thing any longer. 
We all love her, and we must all forgive her, or what’s 
love for?” 


266 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“That is all very well, ,, said Timothy, “but I am 
young; I feel these things. My life has no purpose. 
She was the purpose, and she’s gone.” 

“I suppose,” she said slowly, “that you are the kind 
of man who only falls in love once.” 

“It isn’t any use talking, I know,” he answered. 
“I came here because of those letters you wrote to me, 
and because you are a splendid friend. I wanted 
you to know how much I loved her. I want you to 
know that if ever you hear from her that she is unhappy 
or hard up or alone, I will come to her, even across the 
world. I am going away somewhere to try and get 
cured. I went once before and did get cured, but that 
was a physical disease. This is more. I may get used 
to the pain, but it will always be there to the end of 
my days. For the past three days I have been talking 
to women men seem to find attractive; I find nothing 
in them. My history of women begins and ends in 
Philippina. Tell her that if you like. Almirac’s a 
good chap, but will she stick to him?” 

“It isn’t her fault,” said Mrs. Newberry. “She 
makes me think of some hot-house flower, carefully 
grown and carefully plucked and then wired into a 
buttonhole and sold. It it worn one day and thrown 
away, and some valet picks it up and wears it and he 
throws it away into the gutter, and then some man 
who really cares for flowers finds it and keeps it, because, 
though it is withered, he sees the charm that once was 
there. And then it dies.” 

“You will give her my message?” he said quietly. 
“If she needs me, I will come.” 

“And break your heart again?” 


IN THE SWIM 267 

“That is over,” he answered. “I know I am a 
fool, but I can’t help it. And she will need help.” 

“And you think I would sacrifice you?” 

“There is no question of that,” he said. “I am fool 
enough to want to be sacrificed. I will let you know 
where I am going when I know myself.” And then 
the Cure of Gavarnic came into his thoughts. “There 
is only one place,” he said, “that I might go to and 
from that place I could never come back.” Then seeing 
the startled look in her face, he smiled and took her 
hand. “No, my dear, good, kind friend, I am not 
going to kill myself. I may be very young, but I’m 
not young enough for that.” 

“But what do you mean?” she asked, still not assured. 

“An old priest suggested that I should take up the 
work he once failed to do, and I have only just remem- 
bered it. It is a way out, and should be very interest- 
ing, but it will wait.” 

“Tell me,” she urged. 

“There is a Leper Colony ” he began. 

She covered her face with her hands for a moment. 
“You cared as much as that?” she said. 

“I have no life without her, no interests, no desires. 
You see, I was brought up to be idle and to think 
only of myself. I have tried your novels, your 
poetry; I have tried Nature, and I even took your 
advice and cultivated my garden. I am one of those 
modern products that are thrust out into the world 
with no particular reason for existence, unless it be 
to be a father to a family and live in their future. 
I think I have inherited my father’s spirit of wander- 


268 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


ing. He would have remained at home, except that 
he knew my mother loved another man. They cared 
deeply for one another and kept together always, 
but he died of collecting plants he didn’t want, and 
she died of a broken heart.” 

“ Promise me you won’t go to this dreadful place,” 
she implored him. 

“I think it most unlikely,” he said, smiling now. 
“You see, I am a coward. I don’t want to die. I 
only want to bury myself. Good-bye. You shall 
hear from me.” 

“My daughter!” she said fiercely. 

“That is my one great hope,” he said gravely. 
“That in some great crisis of her life the goodness 
she inherits from you will crush the inheritance she 
has from her father. Wait until she knows pain. 
Good-bye.” 

She sat for some time after he had left her, a figure 
of pitiful remorse, accusing herself, going over the 
hundred and one things she might have done for 
her girl, and seeing with eyes that knew her world 
the awful, desperate life Flip might have to lead. 

And round about her was the mockery of the ultra- 
fashionable room where the colors could almost be 
heard clashing. 

Enter to the haggard, painted woman, Lady Ethel 
Merridew, perfectly gowned. “My dear Augusta,” 
she says, with her well-known simper, “how perfectly 
twee you look. And have you heard? No? Billy 
Martin has run away with his wife’s French maid. 
Isn’t it too amusing?” 

“Much too amusing,” says Mrs. Newberry. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


THE SUMMONS 

'T'HERE are few lives more lonely than those 
A lived starving for sympathy among crowds. 
And all great cities are full of them. The faculty 
for companionship amounts to genius in some people, 
in others one finds the lack of that faculty gradually 
souring young men and young women to a prema- 
ture middle age. Especially can one find the lonely 
ones in public places, where, by very reason of their 
lives, they are forced to air their failure. Here is 
a man who dines alone always, at his Club, giving off in 
some subtle way an air of desiring to be left alone 
duly respected by his fellow-members, and this very 
man sits longing for the power to join the common 
table and lose himself in the easy, natural conversa- 
tions of strangers. Here, in the restaurant, is a man 
who is known to all the waiters, whose entrance is 
greeted with bows of deference, his solitary table is 
always kept for him, and here he sits pining for human 
love and comfort, surrounded by a crowd of human 
beings, many of them quite ready and willing to give of 
their full heart. But imagine then the young man of 
means, with everything at his command, the world 
at his feet and the price of the journey in his pocket, 
with theaters actually built to amuse him, flowers 
purposely grown for his buttonhole and smiles to be 
269 


270 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


bought and paid for awaiting him, and think of him 
bored, lonely, heart-sore, like a man arrived in a cul-de- 
sac, staring at a blank wall. To leap out of bed full 
of health and suddenly to discover there was nothing 
to do! To sail eagerly from the house on a beautiful 
morning and be forced to wonder where to go to! 
So it was with Timothy Swift, and with a thousand 
others also. He tried spending the evening alone in 
his house and there came a ghost and spent it with 
him, and the ghost was of himself, and the ghost said 
“You may have the flesh and blood and the purse, 
but I have the heart. ,, The emptiness of the rooms 
would haunt him, for they were not rooms having any 
associations for him, and the lights shone on chairs 
he had never sat on and shone on pictures he had no 
bought but had inherited, and made little brilliant 
specks of light on china he scarcely knew by sight. 

Several times on the three evenings he spent alone 
he had felt impelled to go to his own front door and 
stand by it open, to see the Evening sky and the de- 
serted street, and he wondered what would happen 
did he speak to the first passer-by and hailing him, 
cry, “Come in, for I must have somebody to talk to.” 
Sure enough, when he felt like this, some tramp or late 
postman, or servant out with letters for the last mail, 
would swing into the island of the gas lamp and vanish 
like a moth. So he took to going on the second of 
those nights by by-ways of London in an old coat and 
a cap and to peering about at the doings of other and 
happier people, and to watching the amazing stream 
of London’s broken people, until he was able, even in 


THE SUMMONS 


271 


his two nights of wandering, to sift the shoddy from the 
poor and the rich in rags and spirit to the poor in joy. 
He got an impression of streets that made the character 
of their inhabitants. There were dark, sinister streets, 
where all the blinds were down and only here and there 
lights showing behind them, and a musky smell per- 
vading everything, as if the people there were hard at 
work studying to become undertakers, or to obtain 
degrees in some sour and grim profession. And 
other streets were streets of endless doorway argument, 
during which children, uiimoved by oaths and blas- 
phemy, played listlessly in the gutter with unwilling 
cats. And always there were broken men and women, 
as it were asking of Providence “Why?” standing 
alone at street corners, and these seemed to belong to 
no street and to no place, but to be a tribe in them- 
selves, vowed to loneliness and obscurity and suicide. 
And he felt he was very near to the ranks of these. 

Such a man having given once out of the fullness 
and joyousness of his nature, and having expanded 
and shown the extreme simplicity of himself in acts 
of love, is like some sensitive plant who has yielded 
her secret to the sun and has been unblushingly 
robbed. There was no chord in him but it had been 
touched and turned to discord, no simple secret but 
it had been plucked and thrown aside, and as a man 
keeps, as it were, his childhood in the inner fastness 
of his souks fort and there cherishes the little, jolly, 
simple things he lives by, and his belief in God and 
his fear of death and his body’s yearning for a mate, 
all ill-expressed but real, so if, when he brings his 


CLAY AND KAINBOWS 


272 

treasures to the light, shyly, they are refused and 
scorned, he retreats into a shell of hardness not easy 
to break open again. 

In a week he was no nearer to any solution as to 
what to do with his life. He was too young and 
vigorous to sink himself into a special arm-chair at 
his Club, too hurt to seek the society of women and 
too morose to make new friends. Often his mind 
wandered to the old priest’s suggestion, but the idea 
made him shrink; he was not of the stuff of martyrs, 
nor did he relish the slow coming of death from a loath- 
some disease. The very thought of the Leper Colony 
made him bring his muscles taut and look at the deli- 
cate machinery of his hands, to watch how alive they 
were to every suggestion of his brain. Had he been 
religious there were a thousand things he might have 
done, for he had money, youth and health. 

Money, youth and health, and he was stunned by this 
sickening blow! 

At the end of the week, to his intense amazement, 
George Weatherby called on him, early in the morn- 
ing. “You look like a bad oyster!” he exclaimed. 

“What about Africa?” said Timothy listlessly. 

“Had to wait for a month,” said Weatherby. “ And 
I routed you out on the chance that you’d do something 
for me.” 

“Anything in the world,” said Timothy, without 
any show of interest. 

Now, this was a plot of Dolly Sterne’s, who, being 
in love, was ready to mother any lost cause. 

“I can’t get any money together for this expedition,” 


THE SUMMONS 273 

said Weatherby, who hated lying, but was doing it 
nobly. 

“Oh, that’s perfectly simple,” said Timothy. “I 
haven’t spent my income for years, so I can do you 
anything up to six thousand pounds — more at a pinch.” 

“My dear man,” said Weatherby, feeling very un- 
comfortable, “I’m not going to buy Africa. I’m 
only going to walk across it to find a man. I’ve got 
some, but if I knew I could have the call on say two 
thousand ” 

“You can call on anything you like.” 

“Look here,” said Weatherby, entirely forgetting 
his instructions. “I don’t want the money. I only 
want to see you buck up and take an interest in things. 
Come with me.” 

To his intense surprise Timothy, after a moment’s 
hesitation, said, “Very well, I will.” 

At this the simple romantic Weatherby began 
a grotesque dance. “Ripping!” he cried. “We’ll 
kill two birds with one stone: find this swine and do 
you all the good in the world. And you’ll forget the 
little beast.” 

“George,” said Timothy, his eyes steeled with 
temper, “ I will not have her spoken of like that. I will 
not have her name mentioned again.” 

“Sorry,” said Weatherby, crestfallen. 

“I’ll pay my share of everything,” said Timothy. 
“And you shall pay my funeral expenses.” 

“You’ll be a lively companion.” 

“If you want a pet dog, go and buy one!” Timothy 
snapped. 


274 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“I want a whisky and soda.” 

“Then you shall have one.” 

This was all said in that good bad temper such 
friends have. The least deviation and they would 
never have spoken to one another again. 

They drank a silent toast, after which Weatherby 
brought himself to the second part of his arranged 
scene. 

“Would you come and lunch with Dolly and me to- 
day, so that we can tell her?” 

“I scarcely know Mrs. Sterne,” said Timothy with- 
out enthusiasm. 

“You’d love her; she’s absolutely one of the very 
best. She’d ” 

“I do not doubt a word of it,” Timothy answered. 
“But I do not think it is part of the bargain.” 

“But she’ll be so disappointed,” said Weatherby. 

Even Timothy smiled. “So she put you up to this?” 
he said. 

“She! Not a bit of it!” said he stoutly. “I told 
her I might be coming in to see you and naturally, see- 
ing you’re a friend of mine ” 

“She suggested lunch.” 

“She said something about lunch.” 

“May I ask why Mrs. Sterne takes this interest in 
me?” 

“ She’s a woman,” said Weatherby. 

“And I am a man, and she would like to get all 
the details of my life first-hand, because you can tell 
her nothing. George, you are very transparent.” 


THE SUMMONS 


275 


“ You’ve turned into a very odd chap,” said 
Weatherby. 

“And you have become very simple. Kindly thank 
Mrs. Sterne and tell her that I am unavoidably unable 
to meet her at lunch. When do you start? I must get 
some things.” 

“ I wonder if you would do me a favor?” 

“Money?” said Timothy mischievously. 

“Lunch,” said George. 

“Oh, very well,” answered Timothy. “Anything to 
oblige an old friend. George, did anyone ever accuse 
you of subtlety, because if they did, they lied.” 

But George, triumphant, neither heard nor cared. 

Dolly Sterne’s house was one of those London 
houses so like another that one might easily think 
one had chanced upon the wrong one by mistake. 
There was the narrow hall and the lack of accommo- 
dation for hats and sticks, and the parlor-maid with 
her regular parlor-maid face, and the narrow stairs 
leading up and the hint of narrow stairs leading down. 
And there was the dining-room door on the right, 
a little open, and a den behind. In a married house 
a perambulator generally took up half the hall with 
an air of defiance, and in a single house one always 
expected that a dentist had the ground floor. The 
drawing-room was furnished in such a way that it 
looked like the case of the shop-lifting of an entire 
window — (this room twenty-eight guineas as it stands) 
— with prints of lovers saying “Goodbye,” in Greek 
clothes, and other lovers saying “At last we meet,” 
in Georgian clothes. A few bad water-color landscapes 


276 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


by friends, and any number of military-looking people 
photographed in stiff attitudes and framed in em- 
bossed silver. The only remarkable thing about the 
room were the heads and horns of slaughtered animals 
which hung like hat-racks out of place all over the 
walls. 

“ Dolly has wonderful taste,” whispered Weatherby 
as they were shown in to the empty room. “I often 
wonder what she thinks of me.” 

Timothy, who was looking about for any single 
sign of personality, remarked that he expected she 
thought the world of him. 

“Marvellous girl,” said Weatherby. “She can 
throw a bit of drapery over anything and it looks 
like home. Isn’t it wonderful to think of my really 
having a romance after all these years?” 

At this moment Mrs. Sterne came in, trying to 
compose herself after a struggle in the kitchen, where 
she had been ignorantly directing the cook over the 
warming of a bottle of claret. She looked deliciously 
pretty, and the slight flush of excitement became her. 

“Sir Timothy,” she cried, welcoming him. 

“He’s coming,” cried Weatherby. 

“You’re going with him! How splendid! You 
two poor men with no woman to look after you.” 

“I’m afraid it would be a bit rough for a woman,” 
said Timothy. 

“I expect you are a woman-hater,” she said smiling. 
“But we have our uses.” 

Weatherby made a face at her by way of diplo- 
macy, and she blushed for a moment, the situation 


THE SUMMONS 


277 


being saved by the entrance of the serene parlor-maid 
bearing two full glasses on a tray, an acrobatic feat of 
no mean merit. 

1 ‘Cocktails I” said Mrs. Sterne triumphantly. “I 
made them myself.” 

Out of a spirit of loyalty to his friend, Timothy 
managed to swallow his, but Weatherby, after a 
sip, said he felt he was better without one. And then 
luncheon was announced. 

“Men are so difficult,” said Mrs. Sterne, leading 
the way downstairs. “I never know what men eat. 
I generally give men lunch at a restaurant and let 
them choose for themselves, but George begged ” 

Weatherby coughed too late. 

“My dear Mrs. Sterne,” said Timothy, “don’t worry. 
Your charming plot would have been discovered at 
the door, since I saw three places already laid, if George 
had not given it away as soon as he spoke to me. 
I know quite well you are doing this out of kindness to 
me. Let me say how kind I think it is and let’s say no 
more.” 

She bowed him into a chair, saying with a pretty 
gesture, “How changed you are!” 

“Time only stands still for charming women,” he 
said. 

“I wish you would tell me the truth,” said Mrs. 
Sterne, “What do men eat?” 

“Oh, anything,” said Weatherby. 

“When I ask him,” she said to Timothy, “he always 
says ‘ Anything,’ or ‘A bit of cold meat and some 
cheese.’ I think the legend of the Club lunch is 


278 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


amazing. If one believed it, Clubs never have any- 
thing but cold beef and pickles. At least, so hus- 
bands always tell their wives when they want to 
bring a friend to lunch, don’t they? George does.” 

Timothy glanced round and seeing that the dis- 
creet maid had withdrawn, he said, “Will you for- 
give me, but it is all very curious to me. You say 
‘George does’ so naturally, and yet I can scarcely 
credit it.” 

“Yes, isn’t it difficult?” she answered serenely. 
“The servants think he’s my brother.” 

“ Do they?” said Timothy incredulously. 

“They are supposed to,” she answered. 

“I do not wish to appear morbidly moral,” said 
Timothy, “but are there any really respectable people 
left?” 

She flushed under the remark, and Weatherby 
said, “My dear fellow!” in tones of great surprise. 

“I mean ordinary men and women, married in 
the ordinary way, with ordinary homes and children.” 

The advent of the ritualistic parlor-maid, with a 
cheese souffle, stopped the conversation. Mrs. Sterne 
looked at it in despair. “It’s meant to be a souffle,” 
she said apologetically, “but my cook’s mother is 
dead.” 

“Let us spare her feelings,” said Timothy gravely. 
“I have had a most admirable lunch, and I want to 
smoke.” 

The maid having removed the dish, cigarettes 
were produced, coffee handed, and Mrs. Sterne, 


THE SUMMONS 


279 


leaning her elbows on the table, said, “Sir Timothy, 
you musn’t blame me, we are trying to do our best.” 

“You are, I suppose, rich enough not to care for 
the conventions?” he replied. 

“Tell him, George,” she said. 

“I have” 

“I gather,” said Timothy, “that we are going 
through a wild country, through warlike tribes, and 
dangerous savage animals, in order to find a husband 
you no longer care for.” 

“I don’t know him,” she said. “Let me tell you. 
I was a girl; we met at a house party and he was very, 
very shy. He used to wander away and talk to the 
animals, the dogs and horses and cows and things. 
And I was so sorry for him that I tried to make him 
unshy, and one day he became most fearfully interest- 
ing and told me all about his life, and how lonely he was 
and how terrified he was of people. And then” — she 
opened her hands with a little resigned gesture — “we 
got married. And I’ve seen him once since. We had 
a weird honeymoon, principally in the Zoo in Berlin, 
where he knew a sick tiger that used to fawn all over 
him and terrify me, and then he left me. And then, 
later, he came back once with a baby rhinoceros for 
somebody here and we spent a short but rather strenu- 
ous time giving it milk, and then he went away again.” 

“I understand,” said Timothy. “Then arrived 
the romantic George. How long has this been going 
on?” 

“Oh, it’s perfectly proper!” she exclaimed. “And 
George is taking him a letter from me to say, Tf 


280 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


you want me, come home, because I cannot bear it 
any longer, but if you don’t want me, tell Mr. Weath- 
erby, and he will arrange everything with you.’ 
That’s fair, isn’t it?” 

“Amazing!” said Timothy. “And what shall you 
do if he decides to come home and claim you?” 

Weatherby twisted his moustache ferociously. “We 
have determined to go absolutely straight in this, old 
man, and if the — the man insists on coming home, we 
do everything in our power to help him.” 

“And I shall break my heart,” said Mrs. Sterne. 

“And my part in this?” said Timothy. 

“You’ll do the talking,” said Weatherby. “You 
see, you’ll be unbiased; you can argue with the chap 
if he suggests coming back.” 

“And,” said Mrs. Sterne, touching his arm, “it 
will help you, won’t it? George told me.” 

For a moment his face was set and steeled, his 
lips compressed. “We will say nothing about that,” 
he said. Then, smiling, he said, “My dear, good 
babies in arms, I’ll go, and be glad to. It’s the maddest 
thing I ever heard of, but so much the better. Mrs. 
Sterne, I’m sorry for the man who loses you.” 

“Would you very much mind calling me Dolly?” 
she said prettily. “You see, it will be so very much 
easier for you and George to talk about me in jungles 
and places. You couldn’t sit up at night in camps 
and places and he say, ‘I wonder what Dolly is doing 
now,’ and you say, ‘I expect Mrs. Sterne is having 
her dinner,’ could you?” 

“I cannot picture it — Dolly,” said Timothy. 


THE SUMMONS 


281 


“ Thank you so much,” she said. “You will be 
such a comfort to George and me.” 

Timothy walked to the Stag Club in a curious 
frame of mind. He wondered if, as Mrs. Newberry 
had said, “Everybody was in love with everybody 
else’s wife and nobody happy.” 

But he had seen such beautiful happiness just now, 
and such simple-mindedness, that he could not believe 
that all Society was wrongly sorted and miserable. 
And yet he had before him the case of Flip and Grace 
and Almirac, of Mrs. Newberry herself, and he felt 
it would be a relief to go up once more to the ordered 
peace of his uncle Oliver’s, out of the sea of confusion, 
before he went to Africa. 

The hall porter gave him a note which he forgot 
to look at and placed in his pocket and only remem- 
bered in the middle of a game of billiards with the 
Club marker. He was feeling in his pocket for his 
cigarette-case and so drew the note out. His hands 
trembled as he opened it, and he told the marker 
he should not finish the game. It was in Flip’s hand- 
writing, her curious, sprawling, large characters. 

“I am in awful trouble or I should not dare to 
write to you. Can you come to me, if only for a 
moment? It is all I ask. Do, do forgive me enough 
to help me. Do. I am in despair and at the Savoy 
Hotel. Do come, or I shall go mad. 

“Flip.” 

He went downstairs and having called a cab, drove 
at once to the Savoy. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


THE OLD ELAME 


URIOUSLY enough a jangle ran in his head 



while he drove to the hotel, one of those 
absurd ideas that fix themselves on the mind just 
before going into action. “Women and wine,” he 
kept thinking, “Women and wine — and she has 
twelve hundred a year and drinks cooking claret.” 
It all arose from the simple ways of Mrs. Sterne. 
It haunted him — goodness knows why — until he 
was in the lift at the hotel, being taken to Flip’s 
rooms. As the man knocked at the door everything 
vanished except an awful void, which dully reminded 
him of terrible interviews with his Head master at 


school. 


There she was, dressed a little in advance of the 
latest fashion, surrounded by roses, the faint smell 
of tobacco in the air. The door was closed; they 
were alone. 

With a gesture of appeal, half-limp, she held out 
her hands, and he, suddenly hard, affected not to 
notice them. 

“I am here,” he said. 

And her answer, “I knew you would come,” made 
him angry. 

“You said you were in trouble,” he said stiffly. 

“Please, please don’t be angry ? Tim dear,” she 


THE OLD FLAME 283 

moaned. “I know what I have done, and I’m really 
and truly sorry.” 

“ What do you want me for?” 

“How can I tell you,” she replied, “if you stand 
up as stiff as a poker. Y ou are so strange, so different.” 

“Haven’t I had something to make me different?” 

She sank down wearily on a sofa and sighed. “I 
don’t know how to say it.” 

He moved a step nearer to her, his eyes fixed on 
her eyes, as if to compel the truth. 

“Where’s Almirac?” he asked, almost brutally. 

“I don’t know,” she answered, with her head down- 
cast. 

Timothy took two steps and leaned against the 
mantlepiece. “You don’t know?” he said. 

“It would be so much easier if you sat down,” said 
Flip. 

“I intend to stand.” 

“You look so strict when you stand,” said Flip. 

“Why have you sent for me?” 

“I have had such a terrible time,” said Flip. “I 
know I treated you badly, but I didn’t mean to. 
I felt so sorry for poor Pinch. I’ve had a row with 
Pinch.” 

“You have left him?” 

She nodded. 

“You came here alone?” he asked quietly, but with 
temper rising behind his calm. 

“Nearly all the way.” 

“What do you mean by nearly all the way?” 

“I’m not in the witness box!” she suddenly flared 


284 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


at him. “I won’t be cross-examined. I want sym- 
pathy, not this horrid questioning.” 

“Then you don’t need me,” he said, moving a step 
away. 

“I’m sorry,” said Flip. 

“ You do need me?” 

“Tim dear,” she begged, “do sit down, then I can 
talk to you. I’m not quite responsible to-day. I 
don’t know what to do. I tried to think of everything 
before I came to you, and at last I swallowed my pride 
and wrote you a note.” 

He sat down on the far side of the room and watched 
her. No trouble seemed to have touched her; she was 
still the petulant, spoilt Princess, the wonderful child 
of their first meeting. 

“Where is Almirac?” he repeated. 

“I promise you I don’t know,” she said. “Tim, 
you know what Pinch is like, so bored, so tiresomely 
bored. We went to Paris. I had to buy things, 
and you know how buying things bores a man. Pinch 
found some men who all looked as if they belonged 
to dogs or horses — you know the kind I mean — and 
they went to Races, while I shopped. And then — oh, 
Tim, do you understand?” 

“Not in the least,” he said wilfully. 

“You know I hate going about alone.” 

In the pause that followed he gripped the arms of his 
chair and started forward. 

“I hate going about alone,” she repeated. 

“Some man?” . 

“Only a nice boy, Tim dear, and perfectly harm- 


THE OLD FLAME 285 

less — I swear that. He used to come with me to the 
shops and carry things.” 

“Did Almirac know him?” 

“How could he?” she said. “The boy only used 
to come to the door of the hotel. Sometimes we 
had tea at one of the shops, or I used to let Pinch dine 
out.” 

“Did he want to dine out?” 

“He didn’t seem to want to, but you see, Tim dear, 
I thought it was good for him not to be always tied 
to my apron strings.” 

“And it was good for the boy, you think?” 

“What funny questions you ask,” she said, bright- 
ening a little. “Of course it was good for the boy. 
I educated him in a week, just to do the right things. 
I thought it would make him so much more attractive 
to other women.” 

“Of course he fell in love with you?” 

She put up her arms and dropped them to her side. 
“I couldn’t help that, could I?” 

“Perfectly easily,” said Timothy. 

“I was most careful,” she pleaded. “But he was 
French, and he did fall awfully in love with me, and 
one day in the sitting-room ” 

“I thought you said he only came to the door of 
the hotel,” said Timothy. 

“Once he came into the sitting-room. I had to 
ask him; he begged so hard. And of course I didn’t 
know he was going to make a scene.” 

“Oh, he made a scene, did he?” said Timothy 
grimly. 


286 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“It was terrible. He asked me to run away with 
him and I laughed. And then he swore he’d shoot 
himself, and he brought out a revolver ” 

“Was it loaded?” asked Timothy sarcastically. 

“It turned out not to be,” she admitted, “but I 
didn’t know that, and I was frightened. And then 
it appeared that the money he’d been spending — ” 

“On you?” 

“Lunches and things — I never think about money 
— wasn’t his.” 

“I see,” said Timothy. “And after that?” 

“After that he said his heart was broken and he 
wept, and I wept a little because he seemed so piti- 
ful. And then — I didn’t think it any harm, he was 
such a boy — he knelt by me with his head on my knees 
and I lectured him, and in the end he said he’d go if I 
kissed him.” 

“Of course.” 

“And when I was kissing him, Pinch came in, and 
wouldn’t let me explain.” 

“I shouldn’t think an explanation would quite 
cover the situation, even an explanation from you.” 

“After that,” she said, in a low, trembling voice, 
“Pinch hit him. He has only one good arm still, but 
he thrashed him with it, and then kicked him out. It 
was awful.” 

“Good old Almirac,” said Timothy glowing. 

“I was furious. I tried to stop him. I told Pinch 
I loathed him, but that was the good, when he kept 
pushing me away with the bad arm and hitting the 
boy on the nose all the time with the other. When 


THE OLD FLAME 


287 


he had finished, he seemed to be in an awfully good 
temper, and rang for a whisky and soda.” 

For the first time in the interview Timothy laughed. 

“I went straight into my room, packed my dressing 
bag, and came here.” 

“You left him!” 

“What would you have done?” she cried, eager 
now. “I did no harm. I didn’t ask the ridiculous 
boy to weep. And then Pinch behaved like a brute 
and beast; I hated him. And I left word that I was 
coming here. And I waited. And he hasn’t written 
or been or done anything.” 

“Failing him, you sent for me.” 

“I was so hungry, Tim dear.” 

He looked round the room, at the bowls of roses, 
the case of cigarettes, at her dress, and asked, “You 
are hungry? Flip, what the devil do you mean?” 

“I only had eight pounds, and I must have flowers. 
And I gave some people I knew dinner here last night, 
and I dare not face the big room — I dare not face any- 
one — with only a few shillings. I knew you would be 
kind.” 

In her old, enchanting way she came across to 
him and took his hand. “Tim dear,” she said, “I’m 
only a silly, stupid girl, and I’m frightened. I’m 
not bad, Tim, I’m only naughty, but I do do dreadful 
things. It isn’t temper; it’s just wilfulness. Do ring 
the bell and order something nice for you and me.” 

In a helpless, dazed way he patted her hand, and 
then got up and rang the bell. 

“Oysters,” said Flip. 


288 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“ There’s no r in the month,” said Timothy. “Have 
caviare.” 

“I wish they’d have r 9 s in all the months,” said Flip. 
“But I adore caviare.” 

A man of steel could not have withstood her during 
that lunch, and Timothy was no man of steel. He 
had, or felt he had, a misunderstood woman — except 
by him — on his hands. The way was clear. Almirac 
had given her up as a bad job. And by the end of 
lunch he gave way. 

“You have failed me twice,” he said seriously. 
“I’m going to risk everything and try again. This 
wandering life — Paris, Berlin, Rome — is no good 
to you. I’m a broken man; you broke me by your 
heartlessness. Make up for it, and I’ll help you. 
Flip, you’re no good as you are; you can’t go on. 
I’m not going behind Almirac’s back in this; he’s 
left you to look after yourself. Put yourself in my 
hands, and I’ll do all I can for you. This is purely 
selfish, because I find I can’t live without you. Some- 
how or another you have wound yourself round my life, 
and without you I am not alive. I know exactly 
what you are now, and I’m willing to risk you with 
my eyes open. You see, I don’t flatter you. I want 
to see Japan. It doesn’t much matter what you want 
to see, as long as you get plenty of attention, that I’ll 
promise you. This is a much more banal, much more 
selfish proposal than you have ever had, but you don’t 
mean romance to me now; you mean necessity. My 
dear, give yourself a chance. There, the murder’s out. 
We could help one another. I’m a bit of a prig, I 


THE OLD FLAME 


289 


daresay, and you are — what shall I say? — too much 
wanting in self-respect. I could wear you into a fine 
woman, do you understand?’’ 

She sat with her hands clasped, her eyes on his 
impassioned face. Not the driest of speeches to her 
could take the passion from his face. It uplifted her. 
It drew her, despite herself, into the thorny path of 
attempted righteousness. She was conscious of a des- 
perate desire to free herself once and for all from the 
turbulent ways of easy life. She felt in this man a 
magnetism which drew out all the better part of her- 
self, and in the agony of body and soul such decisions 
make, she felt the virtue in him steal into her and for 
one moment she knew the desire of good women to be 
good. 

“I won’t, dear,” she said sadly. “I’m just a person 
who ought to flame up and out. I’d only hurt you. 
I must go my way. I’m born that way.” 

He was quick to seize on a trifle. “Being born 
that way is an accident. I can help you, dear; I’ll 
give my life to it. I must, because it is my life. Listen, 
dear. I shall come to you to-morrow at lunch time 
with everything arranged. Don’t count on happiness, 
don’t count on anything, but that I shall be always 
with you. I wish I understood myself; I don’t. But 
I do know this: you and I are made to be happy. I’m 
going now. I have so much to do. No, I won’t kiss 
you, you funny child. And for heaven’s sake, don’t 
cry in front of the waiter — it’s not done.” 

But Flip was crying bitterly. “ I’m afraid,” she said. 


290 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


“What are you afraid of?” he asked lightly. 
“Afraid of me?” 

AH at once she seemed to him to become a real 
baby, something one must look after and care for, 
and every genuine impulse in his heart welled up at 
once. And as he kissed her he said, “There is always 
to-morrow.” 

“Yes,” said Flip, “but there’s always the day 
after to-morrow.” 

And so he left her. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE LAST DITCH 

'TMMOTHY felt that he owed it to Mrs. Sterne 
* that he should call and tell her how it was with 
him. He realized that it would be a bitter disap- 
pointment both to her and Weatherby, but, when they 
saw that he had at last arranged his life, they would 
forgive him. So he sent her a telephone message, 
telling her that he was coming at twelve o’clock with 
important news. 

How changed the streets were, now that his heart 
was light. Old London sang her most joyous air, lovers 
crowded the pavements, children smiled sweetly, the 
trees and sky wore their best colors, and the great 
motor buses became galleons of romance. He trod on 
air, borne up on the wings of love. 

Mrs. Sterne saw the joy in his face as soon as he 
entered the room. “Who’s been giving you a nice 
present?” she said, laughing at his obvious pleasure. 

“Fm going to disappoint you,” he said. 

“ Isn’t it nice, then?” she asked. 

“I’m not going to Africa.” 

“Not going!” she cried. “Oh, you can’t mean 
that! George has booked your berth; it’s all settled. 
He — he won’t know what to do. Oh, you’re joking.” 

Then Timothy told her the story of his meeting 
291 


292 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


with Flip. “So you see,” he ended, “that all goes 
well with me. I’m a gay dog again. The world 
smiles at me; I smile back at the world.” 

“It’s a mistake,” she said gravely. 

“I’ve blundered into happiness,” he said. “Dare 
I refuse the gift of the Gods?” 

“I think I would sooner you were dead.” 

“Dolly!” he exclaimed “That’s not a very pleasant 
thing to say to a man who is beside himself with joy. 
You can understand. You see, I have always loved 
her. I know, of course, all about her failings and 
I forgive them freely if she will only come back to 
me. To think I might have lived alone a musty old 
bachelor without her!” 

“I’m not a clever woman,” she said, “but I know 
my own sex. I’m sorry for Flip. I don’t think 
she can help herself; there are girls like that. She 
doesn’t want love as much as she wants looking- 
glasses; she likes to see herself in men’s eyes. There 
was a girl at school with me like that; she reduced 
all the choir boys to abject idiots about her — one 
after another — just for fun. And then she began 
on the curates. It isn’t a nice story; and she was 
sent away. And she was sent away from the next 
school too. She loves what isn’t her own, and when 
she has got it, she doesn’t want it. Strange kisses — 
old compliments from new lips — that was all she 
cared for. And now ” 

“Do you still see her?” 

“She’s in the incurable-ward of a hospital, making 
love to the doctors.” 


293 


THE LAST DITCH 

Timothy smiled. “But has she really done any 
harm?” he asked. 

“I don’t know if you would call it harm. I don’t 
know if the men came to any harm. But I was 
thinking of the women she has hurt — women whose 
husbands were in love with them before she came; 
girls whose lovers she has snatched away. And 
only for amusement,” she said vehemently. 

“Yet you still see her.” 

“She could charm you even now,” said Mrs. Sterne. 
“She’s like Flip; she has the fatal gift. Men are 
drawn to her like moths to a candle. And women — 
like her. And I love her.” 

“You know her very well, then?” 

“She’s my sister,” said Mrs. Sterne. 

It brought him up short; he had been about to 
treat the case lightly. “Dolly,” he said earnestly, 
“it is very sweet of you to tell me this, but it can 
make no difference. Flip feels a difference between 
me and other men. I know that. I don’t want to 
put it bluntly, but I am going into this with my eyes 
open. I know what the risk is, but I’m going to give 
her a chance. I’m going to devote my life to her. 
You see, I have nothing to devote my life to; my 
days are empty, and now I have something splendid 
to do. Forgive me for being so selfish. I know 
what a disappointment this will be to George and 
to you. But I think you understand. We are going 
to travel. I shall take her away.” 

Dolly Sterne turned from him for a moment and 
dabbed her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief, 


294 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


and then she faced him gaily. “That’s all over,” 
she said. “Now tell me your plans.” 

“I sat up half the night,” he said, “thinking of 
Flip with different backgrounds. She’s too imper- 
tinently pretty to suit the Sphinx, don’t you think 
so? And I don’t want to have the whole German 
army waiting for a glimpse of her outside an hotel. 
And I put Italy aside, as I think somebody might 
stab me for the sake of giving her a camelia. And 
a Turk would be sure to steal her. I thought of 
India, but I don’t want her to upset the entire Civil 
Service, or drive young soldiers to distraction. And 
at last I thought of Japan. Isn’t Japan the perfect 
setting? Plum blossom, paper houses, the little 
people, and the children like dolls.” 

“You laughed at us for being children the other 
day,” she said. 

“And now I’m laughing at myself, and that’s 
one reason for my being so happy. You do forgive 
me, don’t you? I shall think of old George plough- 
ing through the jungle and of you waiting. I wish 
you all happiness from the bottom of my heart. Tell 
George, will you, that I’ll see him before he goes, and 
tell him the extra cabin is a present from me. It will 
give him heaps of room, and he likes room. Don’t 
look so serious; we shall all come out winners. It’s a 
joy to know you. Good-bye.” 

After he had gone, she stood looking out of the 
window watching for Weatherby, and her heart was 
sore for the man who had left, but she did not tiust 
Flip. 

Timothy arrived at the Savoy with a big bunch of 


THE LAST DITCH 


295 


flowers in his hand. The man opened the door of 
Flip’s sitting-room, and there, deep in a chair, sat 
Almirac. 

The two men looked at one another for almost a 
minute. Then Almirac said, “Well, old feller!” 

Timothy sat down limply, putting his flowers on a 
table beside him. 

“Didn’t expect to see me here,” said Almirac, 
lighting a cigarette. “Fact is, dear boy, I’ve been 
here all the time.” 

“What do you mean?” said Timothy. 

; “I gave her a one-boat start, dear boy, that’s all. 
I’ve got an idea for dealing with her, awfully simple 
and very effective. I appear to be neglectin’ her, 
do you see? Then, when I think things have gone 
far enough, up I turn.” 

“I don’t understand you,” said Timothy, nervously 
plucking at the flowers by his side. 

“Very simple,” said Almirac. “By the way, I 
think we’ll have a drink. You look rotten ill, dear 
boy.” 

He rang the bell and ordered two large whisky s 
and sodas, and then, in his slow, drawling way, he 
sat down and lit another cigarette. 

“Where is she?” said Timothy. 

“She’s gone out to lunch,” said Almirac, gazing at 
him vacantly. 

Timothy half-rose, but forced himself to sit down 
quietly. 

“She had an appointment with me,” he said 
hoarsely. 

“Knew it, dear boy, knew it. But she’s gone to 


296 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


lunch with a tame aunt of mine. She’s goin’ to live 
with my aunt until we can be married. Keep still, here 
comes the waiter man.” 

When they were alone again, Timothy said, in a 
voice that he scarcely knew for his own, “She told me 
you had deserted her.” 

“My dear man,” drawled Almirac, “I thrashed a 
puppy for her in Paris and she bolted. As I say, I 
gave her a one-boat start, and crossed by night. I 
came on here, and I thought she’d better not see 
me for a day or two, so I lay doggo until I saw you come 
in yesterday.” 

“She sent for me,” he said, still nervously pluck- 
ing at the flowers, so that a sheaf of petals covered the 
floor by his feet. 

“She does send for people,” said Almirac dryly. 

“ She had no money,” said Timothy angrily. 

“Much better without it, dear boy, much better 
without it. When she hasn’t any, she spends it, 
and when she has, she gives it away in handfuls.” 

“And you think you are in love with her!” cried 
Timothy. 

Almirac stretched his long legs comfortably before 
replying. “We needn’t go into that.” 

“I must go into it,” said Timothy. 

“ Fire away,” said Almirac. 

“ She is everything in the world to me,” he said. “ I 
want her.” 

“ She belongs to me,” said Almirac. 

“She is coming with me,” said Timothy decisively. 

“You’ll find the door of her room behind you,” 


THE LAST DITCH 297 

said Almirac. “You’d better get your answer from 
that.” 

Timothy rose quickly from his chair, walked to 
the door and threw it open. It struck him with 
the chill of a grave. It was absolutely empty. It 
had that lack of personality hotel rooms have. There 
was no sign or trace of Flip’s presence, or of her ever 
having been there. The emptiness mocked at him. 
He closed the door, and came back to his chair, by the 
side of which he remained standing. 

“Where is she?” he demanded. 

“She’s in Norfolk,” said Almirac, “with my tame 
aunt.” He took out his watch. “Lunchin’ by now.” 

“I could kill you for this,” said Timothy, with a 
curious feeling of being strangled himself. 

“Look here,” Almirac said, “you may be awfully 
fond of her, but you don’t understand her a bit. I 

do. She can do what she likes with you, but she 

can’t with me, dear boy. And why? Because I’m 
a bit of a rotter myself. So I know. I give her 

so much rope, and then I pull. You give her the 

whole thing, and she bolts. I don’t care how many 
times she bolts from me; I shall always turn up. And 
in the end I shall win.” 

“I asked her to come away with me,” said Timothy 
slowly. “I honestly believed that you were sick of her 
and had gone away.” 

“So I understood.” 

‘She told you?” 

“She told me everything,” said Almirac. “You 
see, I care for her in a different way from you. I 
never was a feller to flare up and all that. I’m not 


298 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


that kind of chap. I am ready to wait all my life until 
she comes to me of her own free will, as she did once. 
It’s worth it.” 

“I wonder if you know what she means to me?” said 
Timothy. 

Almirac looked at him as he stood there, white, 
trembling. “It’s a nasty knock,” he said. “I’ve 
often wondered why you wanted to mess yourself 
up with people like us. You belong to another set, 
at least, I’ve always thought so. We’re not clever or 
deep. I think you are.” 

“I wonder if you’ll understand this,” said Timothy, 
and his voice seemed to him to come from a long 
way off. “If a man gives the kind of feelings I’ve 
given to Flip to any woman, he takes something 
out of himself, something very precious, something of 
which the color of his life is made. It is given freely, 
for ever, and absolutely. If it is rejected, as she 
has rejected it, a man can never get it back. He 
is poorer by all that, a tremendous loss. He may 
even marry, not that I shall, but he can only give to his 
wife the poor thing that is left. I shall never see Flip 
again, but I should like to hear of her. If she — if she 
keeps straight with you it will help me to build up a 
better idea, not of her, but of women. You must for- 
give my saying this; I felt I had to. I suffer from her 
loss, and again I suffer the blow to my pride. I ought 
to have kept her from the first. I hope you will be 
happy. Will you tell her that? Tell her I don’t feel 
bitter about her, and that I only want her to be happy. 
Please don’t move; I can find my way out.” 


CHAPTER XXIX 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 

TT occasioned no surprise when Timothy arrived 
* at his uncle’s house at six o’clock in the even- 
ing and demanded a hot bath, “one of my uncle’s 
shirts, and a pair of slippers.” He walked up the 
wide oak stairs to the room always kept in readiness 
for him, and sat down in an arm-chair, a comfortably 
tired man. It had taken him four days to walk there. 

After he had left the hotel and Almirac, his first 
impulse had been to try and clear his mind by some 
form of exercise. He went home, changed his clothes, 
and set out at once, walking blindly through London. 
Night found him still walking in a lonely road in Essex, 
nearly twenty miles from home. London had been 
like something in a dream, lights, noise, smell, the slug- 
gish suggestion of the river, then fewer people, fewer 
lights, the passage from town to country where the 
two merge, and at last the clean, sweet breath of open 
fields — all this he passed as it were some phantas- 
magoria. 

He did not think; his brain was too tired for that. 
He had no visions, no hatred, no dreams. He walked 
mechanically, like a man in his sleep; his only im- 
pulse, the thing that drove him, was the desire to 
get away. All unconsciously he took the Northern 
road. All unconsciously his feet led him toward 
299 


300 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


that house and garden of his uncle’s where Time stood 
still and Peace slept. He fled to Nature as the lesson 
the mountains had taught him. He needed the balm 
of her, the size of her, the lack of criticism, the wealth, 
the breadth, the calm dignity of her. 

His senses returned to him as his body failed. He 
found himself standing on a canal bank, looking on a 
scene so calm and dignified that it soothed him at once. 
The long, straight stretch of water went away sound- 
lessly into the distance, and the water bore stars on her 
bosom. On his right a purple mass of trees, rounded 
in sleep, guarded a lock-keeper’s cottage, and the moon- 
light lit the white lock gates and sent their image into 
the steady water. On either side misty flats spread 
indefinitely a sleeping picture of purple and silver, with 
the moon for Queen. All at once some night bird 
wailed in the darkness, and it seemed to Timothy that 
the bird had in some way a connection with him, a soul 
crying in the dark. It was in this moment that the 
full tide of his grief swept over him. Life was as 
empty as the scene. And then his body reasserted 
itself and he shivered with the cold of fatigue. A 
little later he stumbled into a small town, and woke 
up the surprised boots of the hotel, and so got a bed and 
fell into a dreamless sleep. 

On the second night it seemed that the old Cure 
of Gavarnic accompanied him and urged him to 
leave the world and its hollow joys and to go the 
Leper Colony and there merge his life in the service 
of God and his fellow-men. He shook off this fancy 
by quickening his pace until he became too tired to 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


301 


think. And when other, wilder dreams came to 
him, as for instance that women followed him on 
the far sides of the hedges he became suddenly faint, 
and then realized that he had only eaten once of bread 
and cheese in forty hours. 

He found a hotel that night where they gave 
him a good dinner in the Commercial Room, for it 
had been a Market Day, and there was ample over 
from the Farmers’ Ordinary. And three old farm- 
ers and one commercial traveller ate with him. 
Their conversation lulled him pleasantly. It was 
that talk which begins, “I remember,” and was full 
of anecdotes of ancient worthies, men who had never 
seen steam, or heard of motor-cars, or halfpenny 
papers, and the old room glowed with the wit of 
the dead and made the present day seem a very dull 
affair. The Inn stood next against the churchyard 
and was called Church House Inn , and looking through 
the windows Timothy could see the old grave stones, 
all at different angles, and the dark clump of yews 
about the churchyard gate, and it seemed a pleasant 
place to lie in, with daisies for a counterpane and wise 
rooks cawing overhead. It eased his hurt again. 

On the third night his bedroom looked over a river 
and a timber ship lay there, waiting for the tide which 
was high at midnight. He opened his window and 
leaned out to see the men set sail, if there was a breeze, . 
and a fussy tug get up steam. He could hear the rough 
farewells on the quay, and the creaking of cordage and 
the whine of the winches, and the rasp of the anchor 
chain weighing in. Men, it seemed, were orderly yet 


302 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


adventurous; they took life as it came, and went down to 
the sea in ships. He seemed set by his sorrow above it 
all, and yet it eased his hurt again. And now, on the 
fourth night, as he came from his bath, he heard his 
uncle say, “ You may take the cellar key and bring me a 
bottle of that Burgundy from the second bin on the 
left in the inner cellar.” 

They dined at seven, and he was pestered with 
no questions, no more ceremony than, “Well, my 
boy!” 

Timothy gave an account of himself up to a point; 
spoke of his travels and the mountains, and of the 
old priest. His uncle appraised it all with bows and 
the acknowledgment of a hand in a courtly gesture. 
Dessert was laid in the garden, for it was a warm 
summer evening. The fine old port was brought in 
its cradle; the fruit, silver and glass gleamed in the 
warm sunset. The garden was bathed in peace. 

Neither Timothy nor his uncle Oliver spoke. They 
watched the shadows gather softly. The yew hedge 
that had caught the last fire of the after-glow became 
gray-green again, and then, as the night painted out 
the detail of the day, the hedge became a velvet black 
against a purple sky. A warm breeze shook the 
perfume from tobacco flowers and mignonette, and the 
roses breathed their night message to the garden. 

Not until the golden moon rose did Oliver speak. 
“A nightingale will sing directly.” Then over the 
scented garden with its cloak of peace there broke 
the passionate throbbing of the nightingale, emblem 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 303 

of lovers of all time, pleading, loving, despairing and 
in ecstasy. 

The song finished as suddenly as it had begun; 
then Oliver spoke again. “You are young,” he said, 
“ and the pain is much worse. It will become a friend.” 

“You know?” said Timothy from the shadows. 

“I have learnt to read pain,” said the old man. 
“It is perhaps the only accomplishment I have acquired 
in a long life.” 

“It has smashed me,” said Timothy. 

“It is worth living for,” said his uncle. 

“It leaves me empty,” said Timothy. 

“It gives one a truer judgment,” said his uncle. 

“It leaves one nothing in life,” said Timothy. 

“There are other people.” 

“What can I do for other people?” asked Timothy. 

“They will tell you that. They will come to you. 
Your heart will soon be full. The wounded go to 
the wounded, because only they understand. That 
is why you came to me. Untried youth fails you 
in these days. It is a world of great suffering, and 
a very beautiful world.” 

“You find it is?” he asked, knowing that the 
old man was never without pain. 

“The older I get,” said his uncle, “the more I find 
the amazing courage of people. It seems that a 
man must be utterly broken before he can under- 
stand the majesty of life and death. It is not until 
he is tortured that he can see the beauty of the lives 
of the men and women about him. There is no saying 
so true as, ‘Whom the Lord loveth Hechasteneth.’” 


304 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 




“She was very dear to me.” 

“It will endure.” 

“You know that?” 

“My boy,” said his uncle, “you have your mother’s 
face.” 

Timothy began to speak quickly out of the dark- 
ness. “It is so difficult. I am made for nothing 
in particular and I loved this girl. It gave me a 
reason in life. She seems so much part of my life 
that now she has gone out of it, it feels as if my right 
hand were cut off. She has come into my life three 
times, and each time she has gone out of it and left 
me in despair. And now she has gone for ever. I have 
no work to take up, and I don’t know what to do. I 
suppose hundreds of men spend wasted lives wondering 
what to do. Now I have come to an end. My old 
life in town rejects me. I don’t fit in; I’ve grown out of 
it. I tried to find my youth and to enjoy things I 
used to enjoy only a few years ago. Now I cannot 
imagine what I saw in them. I should feel the same 
if I went back to the mountains.” 

“Life is a series of beginnings; even death is a 
beginning.” 

“I would begin again to-morrow if I knew how.” 

“Take what lies directly in your path.” 

“The first thing?” 

“It would be a beginning.” 

“I wonder!” said Timothy. 

“I have always thought of people,” said his uncle, 
“as a mixture of clay and rainbows. At one time 
one’s feet seem so firm in the clay of the world, one’s 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


305 


eyes so fixed on ordinary things, and then some- 
thing destroys them, the world seems futile, it does 
not seem worth while carrying on the drudgery and 
monotony of daily existence. Friends are false, wine 
is sour, women are faithless. And then, when the 
sky is most clouded, there comes the rainbow. It is 
in our nature, really, to hope, to look up for some 
sign from Heaven. Even the most unbelieving of us 
are full of faith when trouble comes. We look up. It 
is our tears and the sunshine of God’s knowledge that 
make our rainbows. Give me my sticks; the dew is 
falling.” 

Timothy gave him the sticks, and put up a hand to 
pull the old man from his chair. 

“I could go to Africa,” he said. 

“How like your father.” 

“It is rather a wild-goose chase,” said Timothy. 

“Tell me,” said his uncle, with his grave smile. 

“A man I know, a splendid chap, is in love with a 
woman whose husband never comes near her. He 
lives somewhere or other in Central Africa, at least, 
that is about as much as she knows. She has only 
seen the man twice. My friend proposes going to 
find him, and to demand his wife’s freedom. Of 
course there is no need for that, but my friend insists 
that it is the honorable thing to do.” 

“I like your friend,” said Oliver, chuckling. 

“He wants me to go with him.” 

Oliver said no more. He was helped out of his 
chair and hobbled to the house, leaving Timothy 
alone. And the peace of the garden entered into 


306 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


him, and he remembered Mrs. Newberry’s words, 
“If you love her, forgive her, or what’s love for?” 

In the morning he went into his uncle’s room, where 
the old man sat gray and haggard with his nightly 
tussle with death. 

“I’m going,” he said. 

Oliver took a miniature in a case from the table 
by him. “I should like you to have this,” he said. 
“It is a picture of your mother. Good-bye, my lad.” 

There was a pause. Timothy bent down and 
kissed the old man on the forehead. 

“I will tell you all about it when I come back,” he 
said. 

And the old man smiled and shook his head. “I 
shall never hear that story,” he said. 

So it was that when Weatherby opened the door 
of his second cabin he found Timothy there, with 
his man stowing away cabin trunks. 

“Well, I’m blowed!” he said. “Dolly, look here.” 

Mrs. Sterne, her eyes a little red from crying, came 
in. “Oh, you angel!” she cried. “You perfect 
angel!” 

“I hope to be,” said Timothy smiling. “But at 
present I am just the ordinary fool.” 

“You will look after each other, won’t you?” she 
said. “ George has given me heaps of books about the 
awful place, and the pictures frighten me to death. 
George, go away.” 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


307 


After he had gone, laughing, she turned to Timothy 
and whispered, “Send your man away.” 

When they were alone, she said rather breathlessly, 
“I don’t want you to go away thinking all women 
are awful. Dear Sir Timothy, I am really a friend. 
I want to say I’m awfully fond of you. And please 
write to me about George. And please do write 
to me about yourself. I know I’m rather stupid. 
Isn’t it difficult to say you have an affection for any- 
body? Will you do all I’ve asked, and I am so awfully 
sorry.” 

“You are a dear, sweet woman,” he said, holding 
both her hands. “You have sweetened everything. 
Good-bye, and be brave.” 

“I mustn’t cry, because George hates tears, so I 
think I’ll go quickly. Good-bye.” 

As they sailed away and the little crowd on the 
quay grew smaller and smaller, Timothy put his 
arm through Weatherby’s and led him below. “ Thank 
God for women like that,” he said. 

“If I don’t have a drink I shall make a fool of my- 
self,” said Weatherby. “I’m so jolly glad you are 
here, old man.” 

“By the way, what is my address?” said Timothy. 

“Gnongo, British East Africa,” said Weatherby. 
“That’s where he was last heard of.” 


CHAPTER XXX 


THE LAST LETTER 


HE dawn crept up behind the elm trees, making 



A their bare boughs look as if they were drawn 
in purple ink against the gray sky, and the rooks’ 
nests were like smudges of brown ink and the rooks 
were blots of black. Oliver Swift sat by the window 
waiting for the day, his head was sunk on to his breast, 
his breath came with difficulty, and his face showed 
the long night’s vigil. But he seemed possessed of 
a monumental calm, an unruffled dignity that was 
somehow enchanced by the wrappings round his swollen 
legs and the empty medicine glass by his side. 

As the red winter sun rose and banished the night 
shadows from the room, lighting on the unslept-in 
bed, the pipe-covered table, and the proud face of the 
old man, it seemed to give him a new lease of life, 
and the color came slowly back into his cheeks. 

He stretched out a hand and picked up a short 
quill that lay on his dressing-table, and drawing 
from it a tiny roll of thin paper covered with small 
pencil-writing, he began to read. 

The romance of that quill and the paper it con- 
tained stirred this man of forced inaction. For a 
moment he lifted his head and smiled proudly. 

“We expect to be attacked at daybreak,” it began, 
“so I am sending this by one of our runners with 
308 


THE LAST LETTER 


309 


other despatches, on the bare chance of his reaching 
our base at the coast. Though this may be the last 
letter I ever write, I regret nothing. Sterne has been 
kept here by one of the tribes, as they think he is a 
great magician, and they are attacking us because 
we tried to rescue him. We have a sporting chance, 
that is all. Weatherby is a great and good man and 
I have never met a better. In case of bad luck, good- 
bye, my dear Uncle, and thank you a thousand times 
for everything. I have left a large sum to be divided 
between Flip and Dolly Sterne. The boy is waiting. 

“Timothy.” 

Oliver had received this the night before, seven 
months after Timothy’s departure. Only one thing 
was clear, that the runner had reached the coast, 
and the quill and its contents had been sent on with 
a bare word from the Commissioner who received it — 

“Expedition starting at once. Think we shall 
be in time. Runner died just after he had delivered 
letter in my office. Will wire news when possible. 

“G. Arbelew.” 

The guarded peace of the house was at strange 
variance with the quill and its contents. It came 
from a place where Englishmen added great tracts 
of land to the Empire, where they died unthanked 
and forgotten very often. But its message brought 
a great calm to the heart of the old man; at least 
Timothy had won through well. He was a man 
to be proud of. 


310 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


His breakfast was brought up to him as he sat 
at his window. For two months now the pain had 
kept him to his room, and it was obvious to his man 
that the end was not far away. 

As he sat watching the chattering business of the 
rooks, he saw the outer door leading into the street 
open and an old man in the dress of a French priest 
enter and walk slowly toward the house. Oliver 
knew of no other French priest than the Cure of 
Gavarnie of whom Timothy had spoken so enthu- 
siastically, and he blew upon the whistle that always 
hung around his neck. 

“Ask the gentleman who has just rung the front 
door bell to be so kind as to step up here. Tell him 
I am sorry I am unable to move from this room. 
And when you have done that, you may take the 
cellar key and decant a bottle of the old sherry and 
bring it here.” 

The man departed, and in a few moments announced, 
“Monsieur le Berade.” 

An arm-chair was brought up and the Cure was 
bowed into it. For a minute he seemed unable to 
speak, and then his eyes caught sight of the quill on 
the table. 

“Monsieur,” he said, “I very little speak English.” 

“Je ne parle pas Fran^ais,” said Oliver with an 
effort. 

The Cure sighed. “Also me,” he said, and produced 
another quill, which he handed to Oliver. “Per- 
mettez?” he said, producing his snuff-box. 

“If you please,” said Oliver, taking the quill and 


THE LAST LETTER 


311 


picking out its contents. He glanced at them and 
saw they were in French and shook his head. Then 
he handed his quill and letter to the Cure, who also 
shook his head. Both the old men smiled. 

At this point the man arrived with the sherry and 
glasses. 

“ James , ” said Oliver Swift, “do you understand 
French?” 

“A little, sir,” said the servant cautiously. 

“See if you are able to translate this note to this 
gentleman.” 

Very painfully and with a red face, James gave 
a rough translation of Oliver’s letter, the old Cure 
assisting with grave politeness. 

“Presque la meme chose,” he said, pointing to his 
own letter. 

“You may pour out the sherry and leave us,” said 
Oliver to his man. 

He knew and appreciated the motive that had 
inspired the Cure to bring him the letter. He realized 
that he had brought it in case the other had failed 
to reach him. But he did not know what an effort 
the journey had cost the old man, and that it had 
cost him an entire quarter of his yearly stipend. 

Oliver Swift raised his glass and bowed over it. 
The Cure did the same, and they drank a silent toast. 

“The first glass of sherry I have tasted for fourteen 
years,” said Oliver to himself. “I shall pay for that 
to-night.” 

The Cure smiled. 

Without embarrassment these men of few words 


312 


CLAY AND RAINBOWS 


passed two hours together without speaking: the 
Cure snuffed and Oliver smoked. 

At the end of that time Oliver blew again upon 
his whistle. 

“This gentleman/’ he said to the servant, “is to 
have every attention. He will stay here if he cares 
to. See that there is a good lunch.” 

The Cure understood the drift of the sentence, and 
he rose and answered in French. “I thank you, 
monsieur, but I shall return to my work after luncheon. 
Adieu, monsieur.” 

With a tremendous effort Oliver rose to his feet, 
supporting himself by holding with one hand on to 
the dressing-table. The old men shook hands. 

The world is full of heroes. 






































